#Intro and I really need to sort out the tagging system.

[notaluckypup]

Okie doke! Now that I know how things work here a bit better here’s a full update to my ✨intro✨ post😵‍💫

DNI-

Minors- this is a Nsfw blog, enough said. Ageless blogs will be blocked for safety unless I can 100% tell you are over 18.

Terfs, swerfs- I am both trans and a sex worker.

Bigots of all kinds- self explanatory.

Okokok Hey There‼️

I’m Lucky🍀

I’m 19

they/he pronouns

I’m a switch who’s been a cam model for about a year now and looking to have more connections and experience😵‍💫💕

This is a blog full of all the things I fantasize about, as well as my personal little hub for letting the world know when I have photo sets, am available for personal calls, or am broadcasting!

Dm me for my menu!!! I am happy to discuss and explain things in detail so please do not hesitate to ask💕

All of my scene and roleplay work is discussed before hand with safewords and limits pre-discussed and consented to and I will block if it even begins to appear unsafe. Safety is my number one concern.

💕Likes💕

🔥Names- lucky, puppy, sir, good boy, mutt

🔥Compliments- handsome, pretty, whatever you like really as long as it has good intentions^^

🔥Anatomy- cunt, boycunt, boypussy, tits, chest

🔥Getting asks/comments/dms- again as long as you’re relatively polite😵‍💫

🔥Basic Kinks you’ll find here- puppy play, primal, dumbification, overstim, edging, cock warming, weed intox, light cnc and free use and breeding themes

Tag system:

#lucky rambles - my original posts!

#lucky jests - jokes, little diddies- sometimes reacting to my followers, sometimes just the random shit that flies into my head

#pup in charge - more dominant original posts!

#pup answers- responding to asks!

#puppy puffs - weed intox original posts!

#pups pics- irl pics and promos for photos sets! Feel free to block this tag if your not interested!

#going live - accompanied with a link to my cam, the length of my streams vary rn so the faster the better for free content!

#serious pup - my genuine takes, usually trying to educate due to bigotry or a shitty interaction.

If any of it isn’t for you, that’s ok! Just block or scroll!

💔Dislikes💔

😵‍💫Under negotiation- nervousness is not an excuse to not fully discuss what you want from an interaction. Be upfront and I am more likely to respond.

😵‍💫Misgendering- I am relatively masculine aligned and I have facial hair. I love dressing up in make up and cute clothes but that doesn’t mean I consent to any sort of detrans kink.

😵‍💫Beggars and choosers- I love chatting with people and making friends AND I will be posting pictures here, however I will not be giving out any paid content for free no matter how charming I might find you. This is my job and at the end of it I still need to eat

‼️‼️Pups playpen application down below- join a server by and for trans people who enjoy my content with a focus on community and kink safety. Join us for game nights, roleplay, and more!‼️‼️

My operating hours are 12pm to 10pm EST (with exceptions) Don’t be afraid to message or send asks! I love to chat💕💕💕💕

#notaluckypup #ftm sub #trans nsft #bd/sm kink #bd/sm dom #ftm nsft #i sell content #dm me for my content #content creator #selling #hornyyy #nsft concept #nsft puppy #petpl4y #bd/sm pet #dumbification #queer nsft #puppy sub #puppyboy

[aventurine-official]

((any tips for starting an rp blog?))

(Mod Minie's rp tips and tricks!

I have quite a few tips, but of course, they don't work the same for everyone. Feel free to use only what you think is necessary!

~ First of all, most definitely do make guidelines. Make the rules clear for people who will be doing rp with you, and respect their boundaries in return. It's most definitely okay to tell others you will not be discussing nsfw topics even if you are not a minor. I've just found that having rules is a nice way to set your boundaries and to avoid incidents easily. I have a rulelist in my intro post, and if you'd like to borrow it or interpret it into your own words or adapt it to fit your needs, then by all means!

~ If your rp blog is a sideblog, send your asks on anon, naturally. But no matter what kind of asks you send, it can be useful to tag your url as a signoff so that when the other person answers your ask, you get a notif from the tag.

~ One of the most "obvious" tips is to have different symbols or font styles for different parts of your rp. Every system is different, and none are expected to be alike. For example, many people use brackets ( ) for when they are speaking out of character, and quotation marks " " for when characters speak. I like to use italics and asterisks * * for my muses' actions, but there are many other ways to do so. Don't be afraid to be creative, as long as the difference is clear to identify.

~ Another tip is to slowly make yourself comfortable in the rp community you're in. Don't be afraid to talk to other moderators because most of them are really great people! This is also a skill that will come in handy later if you need to discuss the conditions for a rp thread or about doing rp for a certain ship together.

~ This is not necessary at all, but I highly recommend making tags. Whether it's to separate your asks from your reblogs, to sort interactions with certain other characters, or to identify your anons, tags are super useful for being able to organize your threads. As some people might not want to see the rp threads that get very long on their dash and instead want to see asks, that way other people can benefit from your tag system too by either following tags or blacklisting as they need. Also-- as a person who like showing some of my rp to other people, the tags are handy for me, too.

~ If possible, find a mod with a masterlist for your rp community. In my case, @/dr-ratio-official holds the HSR masterlist :) It can make it easier for people in your community to find you and to interact!

Mod Minie's rp advice!

These next ones are not tips, necessarily, but I find them incredibly important to know, especially if you're a beginner.

~ There is no rush. Rp doesn't have a time limit, and most other mods will be thankful they get a response from you at all and do not mind waiting from a few days to a month. Please do not let anybody pressure you into answering an ask or into replying to a thread when you do not have the energy. Rushed rp might not always be in character.

~ Don't worry about picking a character somebody else has roleplayed for! Picking a new character can be a handy choice to integrate into a community and to make yourself known, but you should only rp as muses you like! Don't worry if you share the same muse as other mods, just have fun!

~ Don't be afraid to have headcanons for your muse! You don't need to run around trying to prove it's true or get it approved officially. If your headcanons apply to your interpretation of your muse, so be it! If it bothers other people, that will be their choice to avoid interactions or not. In fact, I've often seen other mods agree with headcanons lsagdkagskf

~ Do not feel forced into discussing topics you do not want to discuss, whether in character or out. If you get an ask you'd feel uncomfortable answering, just delete it. It's easier and much less stressful.

~ Do not feel guilty about having favourites or about being someone's favourite, if your muse (or someone else's) has several mods who rp as them. Of course, certain people will have bias towards certain interpretations of characters. Some mods like doing more multi-paragraph rp, and will tend to interact more with certain mods who rp a muse versus other mods who rp the same muses. It's the same thing for more silly, less serious rp! It all depends what style you like, and I'm sure you'll find wonderful people who you enjoy doing rp with :)

~ Make sure your rp community (whomever you choose to interact with) is a safe and fun space for you and others! Do not be afraid to speak up if something makes you uncomfortable, and do not feel badly for cutting off interactions with a specific mod or anon if they do not respect your rules or begin to harass either you specifically or somebody else.

~ Lastly, just have a blast. That's what rp is for, bringing joy to yourself and others, as well as growing closer to your muse(s)!

I'm so glad you asked me for advice ahaha it makes me feel more experienced than I am! I hope this helps :) ~ Mod Minie)

#trump card 🃏 #ooc asks #ooc answers #honkai star rail #honkai star rail rp #hsr #hsr aventurine #aventurine #aventurine honkai star rail

[we-love-morioh-cho]

Chapter 58 - Kaato's Return

I try to avoid long, speculating posts for my Jojolion liveblogging BUT Chapter 58 has my mind racing with ideas and I'm so excited for the Higashikata family drama that I need to get this out of my system. This single chapter has more character intrigue to me than other entire parts of Jojo, that's how much I love this stuff 😭

This post is really, really long and messy and probably more headcanon than actual analysis and will not be very polished. It'll likely age poorly and be very wrong but this is legit some of the most enjoyment and interest this franchise has ever given me. To avoid spamming the tags, I'm shoving a lot of ideas into this single post so I apologize in advance.

Kaato

One thing I've had spoiled about Kaato is that she isn't the main villain but that everyone wanted her to be. So I'm already really excited for her character but I'm not sure what to expect. Given how Jojo is written, I'm expecting there to be more to the child murder. Her intro referenced Jolyne a lot, soooo I'm thinking she was pressured by someone / set-up.

Maybe I'm just falling for her scheme like I did with Damo, but her grief and pain here feels genuine to me. If there is more to the murder, then this is a tragic situation for Kaato - she was separated from her children and has been iced out of her own family. There must be a reason she could never tell them the truth too, maybe she's still in danger?

This series tends to neglect mothers in the narrative so I'm enjoying their focus in Jojolion, plus there's some sort of parallel with Holy being established. I'm trying really hard not to stan her before knowing the full story in case it's absolutely fucked up but god is she iconique. I'll talk about her in passing in other character's sections, there's already A LOT to say and already she is a very high tier character to me.

Josuke and Kei

Poor Josuke man.....I was not expecting the hospital scene and it really got to me 💔 I'm so glad Jojo has been exploring it's protags' internal lives more in later parts, I would say since Jolyne it's felt more introspective and emotional. I'm glad poor Josuke is getting to have his grief explored and shown, it makes the storytelling so much more impactful to me at least. I must ask why Kei wasn't at the hospital, surely she must know of Holy's condition and should be involved too. Have her and Josuke even really spoken since early Jojolion? I need more of Kei as Holy's condition becomes more and more important.

What on Earth does Josuke feel seeing Kaato show up? We don't get an answer in this chapter BUT I am hoping him and Kaato will interact in the future and this will be brought up. There's just a lot of directions to go with this dynamic and I hope we get it explored. He was pretty passive during Kaato's scene, I kept hoping she would point him out and question his presence but fair enough. Also, it was interesting how him and Kei were the two outsiders during this scene - as their mother is dying, the mother of the Higashikata family appears and is clearly involved with Jobin who is also vying for the miracle cure that they need too. Crazy potential here with these characters.

Norisuke

Not to be a Kaato apologist already but I have some things to say about this man. I'm assuming that, if there is a deeper secret to the murder, he's unaware of it, but I really have to ask why Kaato wouldn't tell him?

I get that telling your two youngest kids that their mother was in jail for killing a child would be rough but GODDDDD he couldn't even tell them when they got older or at least keep his story straight? Also, evidently Jobin and Hato never told their siblings about their mother - how did that conversation go? Norisuke had to be the one to enforce that rule and I'm sure it was not an easy process.

Did Norisuke ever talk to his eldest children about their mother leaving? Because with how Hato phrases it, it seems like he brushed it all under the rug. And while it's obviously sad the two young ones never knew about her, imagine what the two eldest kids felt having known her then watching her be dragged away????? He never even showed the little ones a photo of her, that is insane and just next level to me. Was Kaato's crime not widely discussed in the town? How did neither Joshu or Daiya ever hear about it somehow?

This section originally spiraled into a HUGE theory / headcanon / speculation discussion on how the Kaato situation might've led to a divide in how the eldest siblings and youngest siblings were raised, but I'm gonna wait on that thought until I know more and give it it's own post in the future sometime.

Jobin

Jobin was a pure menace this chapter and I fucking loved it. He really let his convicted-murderer mother into his family's house, didn't inform anyone of her release, and shows up as soon as she leaves to casually drop that he orchestrated this whole thing. And then he rocked up like this -

I'm guessing he watched / listened to the whole ordeal from afar and just chose to watch the chaos? I have a lot of thoughts and theories about how Jobin views his younger siblings and this chapter doesn't help lol. Why did he do this? What did he gain from this? Absolute deranged menace behavior lmao

I'm now thinking that Jobin and Norisuke's issues with each other may have originated from Kaato. Jobin is clearly close with mommy dearest and seems to take her side over his dad's. I'm not.......the biggest fan of potentially blaming Kaato for Jobin's issues and I hope this isn't just an 'evil mother turns son against poor father' situation because I am not a fan of that trope.

Kaato briefly mentions that she's helped the family's success so I'm wondering if she is behind Jobin's philosophy of advancing the family's greatness beyond Norisuke's smaller ambitions. You know that other trope of women in patriarchal systems using their cunning and male relatives to exercise great power from the shadows, a la Agrippina and Nero? Yeah.

Anyway, him and Kaato are obvs scheming and I am so fucking keen and ready - Jobin has been a great antagonist so far and I am here for the fucked up mother-son team taking on Norisuke. The Higashikata family drama has hooked me from day one and I really enjoy the focus on their dynamics. Norisuke's final line this chapter is incomplete as he ponders something about Jobin, I love the mystery set-up with what could be going on. I adore how character-driven this story is and how personal the stakes are - I've ALWAYS wished the series explored the Joestar family more in-depth and, while it's obviously different, this part is making me veryyyyy happy with the Higashikatas. A++++ content for me and Jobin remains both compelling and really fucking funny.

Daiya

Not too much to say but this shit is so sad to me. Her entire life, Daiya's father and two eldest siblings never told her about her mother, to the point she seems surprised to even have one? Maybe this is just meant to be a joke about her being dumb / she's more surprised her mother is alive but still. Norisuke couldn't show her a photo, or give her closure or anything? A memento to think of her? Even a story so she could at least know something positive about her own mother who she surely must have wondered about before?!?! Norisuke is on thin fucking ice istg.

I could easily see Daiya latching onto Kaato moving forward and maybe even taking her side over Norisuke. Ofc she loves her dad but she's also a teenager finding out this critical bit of info has been hidden from her her entire life and is clearly so, so excited to have a mum 💔 Imagine how impactful it would be if Kaato managed to win over 2 of their 4 kids, the eldest and the youngest? I don't wanna get into speculating too much though.

Also - it was very sweet to me how Daiya was the one person who tried to approach Kaato and clearly wanted to help her up when Joshu tripped her. Regardless of Kaato's trustworthiness, I just thought that was very sweet of Daiya even if it maybe was naive 🥺

Joshu

Hate him and need to see him die rn. Kaato was completely justified and very based for attacking him and I hope she kills him with her bare hands. Literally the dinner table scene from Hereditary. What the fuck kind of parenting does Norisuke even do? Kaato's here for 5 minutes and puts Joshu in his place, while Norisuke just seems annoyed by him and has nothing to really say about him sexually assaulting Kaato in front of the entire family.

I don't want to imply that a strict mother would entirely fix Joshu's issues but holy shit, at least she would actually do something to discourage his behavior besides sighing and looking embarrassed. Is Joshu the way he is, in part, because Norisuke is a lousy dad who has implicit biases and an acceptance of his son's horrific behavior? Maybe. In an alternate world, could Kaato have whipped him into shape growing up and saved us all? I can dream.

Hato 👑

Fuck!!!!! I love Hato sm and am so so so happy she got a little spotlight this chapter 🥺. Initially this post was just gonna be about her because I'm in my Hato-obsession era so hard rn, but I had too much to say about everyone else. This will be a long section so I saved it for last but I will def return to some of these ideas when I've finished Jojolion.

From a writing standpoint, Hato is so valuable in this chapter. She fulfills a role that really no other character could and its cool to see - Hato is the only character who could realistically convey info to Josuke, and therefore the audience, about Kaato. The parents are too caught up arguing with each other and wouldn't want to tell the whole room about the murder. So who; a) knows about Kaato and her actions and b) has a good enough relationship with Josuke to convey this info to him? Hato. And what's cool is that Josuke knows this.

Josuke is perceptive enough to realize that Hato recognizes this woman and quietly asks her who she is. Despite how personal and emotionally-difficult this moment would've been for Hato, she opens up and tells him (and thus the audience) this family secret.

This next point is probably a bit more fanfic than analysis, but Hato would easily be the closest person to an ally Josuke has in the Higashikatas besides his complicated dynamic with Norisuke. It's really understated and maybe not even intentional, but Josuke and Hato logically should trust each other.

Jobin and Joshu just have an all-out antagonistic relationship with Josuke and have actively clashed with him multiple times. Josuke is on good terms with Daiya and Tsurugi, but not only did both begin by attacking Josuke, but they are both young and cannot always fulfill an equal role to Josuke because of this. Mitsuba and Kaato are currently unknowns, leaving Hato.

Unlike Norisuke, Hato has never antagonized Josuke. She has never gone after someone he cares about and, critically, is uninvolved in her family's shady stuff. She's not in the position to hide vital info from Josuke or scheme against him. All around, Hato seems pretty pleasant honestly and doesn't ever hurt others the way her siblings all seem to do - her eccentricities are harmless and Josuke doesn't judge her the way he judges other characters. In a house full of shady and bombastic people, I can see Josuke really appreciating Hato (Kei should really fulfill this role too).

In the Vitamin C arc, he specifically wants her permission before he kills Damo. Josuke can be ruthless at times, Damo is actively killing the family and it would be very justified for him to just kill the guy BUT he waits for Hato's approval. To me, that really says something - that he respects and likes Hato enough to go out of his way to consult her. Then, Hato and Josuke work together to defeat Damo, both using their stands to overcome Vitamin C. And Josuke's words on Damo being a threat and needing to be defeated helps Hato in her emotional journey - helps her reach the point where she fights back.

They're paired together a lot in this chapter and it's sweet seeing Josuke actually have a nice and healthy bond with someone in this goddamn family 😭 They really play off each other in a compelling and dynamic way, they're open to what the other says and they just generally seem to be on the same wavelength. I just see endless potential in them working together and getting along and maybe becoming like actual siblings and I hope we see more because I can see The Vision and I love them.

Focusing back on Hato, I desperately need to see more of what her childhood was like. What was her and Kaato's relationship? The only thing Kaato says to / about Hato is that she's "as beautiful as ever" and then a little quirk she had as a child. This doesn't give us a lot so I don't have a clear idea of their dynamic outside of wild headcanon. More importantly, Hato knows her mother well enough to anticipate her retaliation against Joshu. This makes me think that maybe Kaato was a stern mother who never took any disrespect and that she potentially had her stand even in Hato's childhood. There's so much potential here but it's too early to know anything.

While I know it likely stems from Araki not really intending for Hato to be a major character, from a Watsonian perspective it amazes me that Hato is as well-adjusted as she seems to be. The amount of disruption she faced as a child, losing her mother and then having her father give conflicting info is insane. Again, how did she rationalize all of this?

And then, worse of all, for her to have to look up her mother's crimes herself and find out about the murder herself - I am begging for a flashback to that event. Did she confront her father? Was Norisuke ever planning on breaking the news to her? Did she ever talk to Jobin about the crime?

I'm not gonna dwell on this too much, but this reveal makes the lack of Jobin + Hato moments so far really stand out. With their father having to raise the young ones and trying to brush everything under the rug, did the 2 eldest siblings ever confide in each other? It doesn't seem like it, their large age gap and Jobin's shadiness around Kaato gives me little hope Hato could find much solidarity with him but I might be wrong. I would love to have a scene of the 2 talking about this or really just interacting in a meaningful way.

This is much more fanfic-y and is my feminist lens coming in, but I can't help wondering if Hato took on a sort of 'motherly' role after Kaato's arrest. I'm not saying Norisuke like demanded she help raise her siblings buuuuuuuut I could see societal expectations and their family's situation causing Hato to take on this role regardless. Jobin was nearly an adult when Kaato left and seemed to go off and start his own family / pursue his own ambitions. He doesn't seem very close with his siblings and, with how much Norisuke has on his plate, I could see some responsibility and expectation falling onto Hato's shoulders. A maid could've helped but it is unfortunately a thing that eldest daughters in a family are burdened with these duties even when older sons are in the family. And with her mother gone and her male relatives set to run the family business, it just feels very likely. Would the eldest daughter even have a chance to run the business?

Hato is close with her younger siblings, she playfully teases Joshu and looks out for Daiya. While she has her own quirks, she is generally much more mature and responsible than most of her family. As the inheritor of the family curse and the business, a lot of focus would've been on Jobin growing up. Norisuke wanted to act like Kaato never existed and Jobin is distant, clearly knowing more. Hato would've been the primary female figure in both Daiya and Joshu's upbringings, she had to lie to them and keep the secret of Kaato for their entire lives. But she's not included in all the other secrets of her family, she's left out of a lot of subplots and the idea of her being involved in the business is never even suggested. Most likely, she'll remain a minor character, but god would I love for all of these intricacies to be explored. There's just sooooooo much juicy potential here, so much family drama and character arcs and social commentary and thematic stuff here and I know I'm overthinking this but idc I love Hato and her unique role in the story and this chapter has really opened my mind to a lot of ideas and possibilities.

Lastly, I just wanna point out Hato's current feelings towards Kaato and how she seems to be distancing herself from her mother. She seems distrusting and literally looks down on here in the panel above - please God give us some interactions between these two, I am so intrigued to see more of what Hato thinks about her. If there is more to the story of Kaato allegedly killing a kid, how will the family react if it comes to light? I hope we see lots more family drama and I am begging for more Hato focus especially, love her so much.

#finally just gonna post this even if its a mess lol I need to get this out of my drafts for my sanity #jojolion spoilers #reading jojolion #mine #jjba #jojos bizarre adventure #text #analysis #theory #joshu higashikata critical #norisuke higashikata iv critical #critical #jjba critical #I don't think I'm really being critical here but I'll tag just to be safe ig #jojolion #josuke higashikata 8 #kaato higashikata #jobin higashikata #kei nijimura #hato higashikata #joshu higashikata #norisuke higashikata iv #daiya higashikata #long post #jojolion is so peak #also I'm 100000% returning to some of these ideas once I've finished part 8

[365runesoftheamalgamations]

The Not Yet Forgotten Introduction

hello and how are you?

This has been far too long since we have been active and we've wanted to get back into the flow of things! And we believe it is time for a Reintroduction! So, without further ado,

A Proper Introduction

Welcome to the Writing Blog! We are the Not Yet Dead Authors, the Natsume Rune! You may refer to us as Natsume as a whole, or say hi to any of the specifics who run the blog/do the writes! Our pronouns are we/they, and we are an aromantic/asexual genderfluid cluster of whispers drowning in the Void for more than two decades. So just another set of Wanderers who wish to reach out and touch the Worlds in a more pronounced way!

Full Writeblr Introduction under the cut!

Getting To Know Us

We are most comfortable writing and conversing in italics! It just feels like it speaks with our souls, so please be aware that most of the posts and such will be within that realm of writing.

Our most comfortable sense of writing is in third person present tense! We also write in first person (sometimes) and second person (rarely) but our comfort lies in others and their present.

We write mostly fantasy but also dabble in horror, science fiction, dystopian and other works and writing styles. We do hold our own universe, the Storyverse, that we will hint, note, and talk about, depending on things, as well as a multitude of Worlds that will be given over to the Stories happening within in. Hardcore about both worldbuilding and storytelling, so we will probably have a lot to say about both the Worlds and Stories that come with our hyperfixations.

Our writing forms include: fanfiction, short stories, drabbles, flash fiction, novels, poems, and role playing! We enjoy rolling through forms and trying out different ways of telling and sharing stories, so please note that there will be a lot of everything on here.

We follow from the System's Blog, @365runesofthesystem, and will try to be really active in the community, so if you see us around, then feel free to indulge us! We love to be tagged in games and sent asks and the like and will try to get to all of them in due time. [ yes, we do hoard Tag Games, shut the fuck up about it. ]

If there is anything else anyone would like to know, do not hesitate to ask or message us! But be aware that we are not afraid to deal with anything impolite or inappropriate, we have a zero tolerance standard and we will keep it without hesitation.

The Amalgamations of our Creations

We have a lot - and yes, we mean a fuck ton - of Works and Stories that we want to tell at some point in our lives, so this list will definitely grow and expand and shift as we go through our journey.

If you want a full list of all of our Works, check our both our Original Works Masterlist and our Fanworks Masterlist!

All Links to WIP Pages and Intro Posts will be added as we get things sorted and settled!

But here are a few of our more pronounced Works, [ yes, they can and will probably shift and change. No they are not in any particular order, we hate figuring out orders. ]

Grayland's Shadow

Original Work | Fiction, Low Fantasy, Horror Elements First, Second, Third Person | Second Drafts

Ecstasy. The screaming, the struggling, the pleas for mercy, he loved them all. He loved the way they always seemed to think that he would set them free. That, if they were good and tried hard enough, he would just let them live, bleeding and knowing. As if he would ever let anyone go. He never did. He never wasted an opportunity either. So when a girl, around her way into adulthood, sat down next to him on the bench that day, he had no intention of letting her go. None.

Constellations By Orion

Original Work | Fiction, High Fantasy, Action and Adventure Third Person Present Tense | Scene Drafting/Worldbuilding

Orion is the first one she goes for, as he always points North. "I am just saying, your little stowaway is pretty cute." "I don't need a man Orion, I need directions across the sea." "Trust me, if you want a purpose, you should find Ursa Major. She's the guide of adventure, new life." "And where can I find her?" "At the heart of the ocean. She is the Guardian of Polaris and her baby, Ursa Minor."

The Queen & The Heir

Short Story | Fiction, High Fantasy, Medival Third Person Present Tense | Scene Drafting/Prompt Response

She hates herself for hesitating. She stares at the note, gentle cream instead of stark white in order to hold the same connotations of the maid notes that she, and more importantly he, was accustomed to seeing. She glances at the Guard, barely catches the door closing completely, locking her in with the words that would prove herself justified. Or truly and quietly mad.

The Rapunzel Witch

Short Stories | Fiction, High Fantasy, Fairytale Retellings, LGBTQIA+ Third Person Present Tense | Chapter/Scene Drafting

Vibrant and sharp, it is another small check to his identity; the Queen is staring at him, though instead of the hard determination of a leader, he stands before the soft gentleness of a person unused to such direct contact. Something shifts in those eyes; the Royal Majesty frowns more before he lets his eyes drop to the ground between them. “Well, that’s that then, isn’t it?” The Knight feels a soft pang; he almost takes a step forward, hand twitching at his side before the Royal spins around and walks away from him. “Your obligations are fulfilled; the Rapunzel Witch lives.”

The Plague Begins With Me

Original Work | Dystopian, Horror Third Person Present Tense | Scene Drafting

Lost to the devastation of the Plague and destroyed by the aftermath of Humanity’s Fall, the World of Zeomia holds nothing but the dystopian devastation of disease and decay. Shouldering a responsibility that no one else is allowed to know, Zero tries to give mercy to those who have fallen from her own twisted fate.

Main Tags of the Blog

rune ⊹ writings | general writing tag rune ⊹ works in progress | where you can find all of our works rune ⊹ wanderlust | general tag for other blogs rune ⊹ nonsense | fun and silly things outside of the writings/writeblr rune ⊹ beloved | general tag for the mutuals of the writeblr rune ⊹ asks | tag for answering asks and anything from the inbox rune ⊹ authors | writing updates and softer thoughts of us rune ⊹ background noise | anything to do with the blog

#rune ⊹ authors #writeblr #writing community #writeblr intro #creative writing #tumblr writers #writers of tumblr #writerscommunity

[thirst2]

It's been said, before, and I think anyone remotely familiar with open-source has experienced or heard it but I'm still always taken aback by how much technological infrastructure was built to be general-purpose and malleable by the common user and how much corporations obfuscated and erased this.

Even in the tagging system for .mp3 files – ID3, an open standard –, I'm finding all kinds of functionality they accounted for that makes a lot of sense for a music file to specify (like lyrics synch.ed to timestamps and being able to specify events in the song like the outro or intro or the refrain or an interlude).

And I was just completely unaware of them because no music player on Windows ever offered them (alright; I mostly used iTunes, at the time, but the point stands).

iTunes saves any ratings you apply to songs in its own database; I never used the system in part because I've never found a need but, primarily, because I didn't want to invest a bunch of time and effort into something I'd lose the second I switched music players.

Oh; but did you know ID3 (v2) has a rating tag? One that iTunes could have used and then I'd take my ratings wherever I take my files with me?

Not only that but rating for a song are marked by an E-mail of the person rating; I expect it was largely to provide a unique identifier of some sort (and very 90s/00s to assume an E-mail is one's primary form of unique ID) but that means that songs can be rated by multiple people.

When your friends give you a copy of their favorite songs on a USB drive, those songs would've had their ratings.

Like a lot of tech. (especially early) architecture, this part fails to account for the presence of bad actors and spam but it also means you could reach out to those who rated the song, before you; their E-mail's right there.

Back when we traded AOL handles and the notion of communicating with those you knew but weren't nearby was exciting and new, we could have reached out to the friend of a friend of a friend at school who'd rated the song before handing it off until it reached us.

Even – now –, accounting for not wanting to attach your E-mail to a file that you'd, then, have to worry about getting into hands which might abuse that personal info. about you, being able for multiple people to tag a song is cool.

If I setup a Raspberry Pi at home and setup the Music Player Daemon on it for Jude and I to both put our songs on to listen to, etc., we could both tag the songs with our ratings and see what the other thought of the music we were sharing.

Like…this is some cool functionality ideas; this is some nice architecture. You just need the players to implement the functionality.

But they didn't; iTunes setup their own rating system (whether to tie people to their music player or not, I have no idea) and I never bothered to use what could be a sort of communal feature.

When I get excited about tech., these are the things that initially drew me to it – the ability to not only make my life, as a spoonie, easier but the ability to make all kinds of stuff we do everyday easier and with more people and to connect us all even more.

From the ability to making things more accessible without having to rely on others as much for it to…I dunno; the possibilities are endless.

Instead, the sheer joy so many of my generation had at creating their personal web pages by playing around with HTML and CSS became harder to construct because these businesses didn't care to make these experiences accessible because they didn't make them money.

I will never not be angry about that.

In any case, I'm at the point where anything further I might say is something I've already said before here on the subject; but I'm going to have these other tags be more accessible in my player. There's some really neat functionality in there that someone might want to utilize if presented in a more user-friendly manner (the original job of the music player implementations, to begin with…).

#About Me #About Me Retrospective #Music #Open-Source #Programming #Technology

[serenanymph]

wip intro - beast

A single feather drifts from within the boy's bloodied cloak to the ground, floating, dancing on the wind. Pitch black, stained red, exactly like the ones Crys had seen earlier on the trail. Silence. The world holds its breath, both of them staring at that feather on the ground, a single second stretching out into eternity. “Oh,” the boy says weakly. “Shit.”

GENRE: YA high fantasy

POV: third person, multiple, present tense

STATUS: book 1 on hold (final draft), book 2 ongoing (first draft)

FEATURES:

found family and large casts

queer characters of various flavors + background romance

sarcastic one + ray of sunshine one

chill lesbian + disaster lesbian

undead creatures!!! cool magic!!! shapeshifting!!!

a Journey

discrimination, eventual rebellion, lots of blowing stuff up

telling each other to practice self-care while not practicing self-care

and a protagonist who doesn't really fit the 'hero' or 'chosen one' role

SYNOPSIS:

There are monsters in the woods.

Beasts have been at war with humans for centuries. The children of Katas himself, they are shapeshifters, magic wielders, and the source of the Witchrisen that has been plaguing Kosei since time immemorial.

For Crys Averwell, a human boy from a backwater village, there has never been any reason to doubt the old legends. However, when he stumbles across a wounded crow-boy in the woods whose wings have been brutally hacked off, everything he knows is thrown into question.

On the flip side, Icarus Kal-Nira is wingless, weaponless, and stranded miles and miles away from home, with no way to get back. If he wants to survive, he's going to have to trust Crys.

Quite unfortunately, that's the easy part - because when the entire world hates Beasts, a single ally won't be enough to grant an edge. And as time goes on and threats increase, it's only going to get harder for Crys to hide Icarus's existence from his village...

POV CHARACTERS

Crys Averwell - 16, human, archer. sharp tongue and even sharper wit. walking personification of "I'm fine", needs sleep and therapy but is getting neither because I keep putting him in Situations

Icarus "Ink" Kal-Nira - 17, Beast (Crow), dual-wielder. ray of sunshine and genuinely the nicest person to ever exist. giant golden retriever energy. Trying His Best

Dahlia Reistveil - 17, human, daughter of a tavern-owner. Crys's childhood friend. often seen as the Mature One, but underneath all that she has a boatload of her own Issues

Beatriz Das-Reille - 16, Beast (Crow), Icarus's sort-of-but-not-really-little-sister. fast flier, wields a rapier, and is made up of only anxiety and more anxiety.

taglist (lmk if you want to be +/-): @sapphos-scientist

feel free to browse through the gen tag in which I reblog everything from inspiration to resources, and occasionally actually post something! I'll probably make a proper long page later on and sort out the tagging system, but until then you just get this.

#my posts #beast #writeblr #writing #wip: beast #wip intro #writeblr community #this is really just the intro for the first book #since there are a lot more characters once the world opens up #might make like. a second wip intro??? when I finish book 2??? idk #or just like make a book 1 page and then a book 2 page #idk honestly this is a lot more complicated than I thought it would be #now. time to stop posting about writing and actually write

[hunter-sylvester]

Intro post [OLD]

I have an about me but I know some people are mobile-only so here we are 🤘

This is sort of a personal blog combined with multifandom? I guess? This is also my main blog. Side-blogs are listed below.

The basics: My name is Hunter, I’m a gen z adult. I’m a gay trans guy & I use he/him pronouns. I play guitar, just not well. I’m a metalhead, some of my favorite sub-genres include: DSBM, Black Metal, Thrash, Death, Doom, Death-Doom, Black/Thrash. I live with my boyfriend and English is not my native language but it is the one I use the most. I’m European with a weird sleep schedule so my active hours are kind of all over the place. I’m autistic and have ADHD as well as (social) anxiety. Depression sort of comes and goes. Head’s a mess a lot of the time but I manage. My social battery can be pretty limited but I do enjoy interacting with people when my head will let me ^-^

Tumblr’s direct messaging system sucks so if anyone wants to add me on discord, just ask (mutuals especially) (obviously I won’t add minors on discord)

My main interests currently are:

Metal Lords 2022 [Special Interest]

Steddie/Stranger Things

Metal music

Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Queer stuff

Heartstopper (pretty much all of that goes on @softsylvester​)

My creative outlets are whatever the fuck my head will allow at the time. But I mostly post writing, video-edits, and gifs. And I use the following tags for them: #hunterwriteswords #huntermakesedits #huntermakesgifs

I don’t go out of my way to make all of my creative output sad and ‘dark’ but it just sort of turns out that way sometimes. I try to tag as accurately as I can. Please use your own judgement accordingly. Especially with my writing on Ao3 (Due to AI scraping of Ao3, all my stuff is locked to registered users only for the time being. Everything is still up, nothing is deleted, but you need an account to view it.)

Sideblogs: @metal-lords​ (Just Metal Lords posts, mostly reblogs.) @key-to-everything​ (music blog) @metalsylvester​ (random stuff I didn’t wanna reblog here for whatever reason, occasional og posts, some venting) @softsylvester​ (cute and wholesome stuff, cute animal spam sometimes, occasional og posts)

If I haven’t responded: I take a little longer to know what to say sometimes. Blame social anxiety. I may also just not know have known what to say all together or missed that I was supposed to respond and just left it, if you want me to respond, give me a nudge. An ask or a dm usually works (there is also always a chance that tumblr ate the notification/ask/dm, it does that sometimes.)

DNI? I’m not fussed on having a whole DNI list but if ED blogs could kindly fuck all the way off that would be great. I know you’re hurting but I can’t have that shit around me.

On chain asks: They’re very sweet and I understand the sentiment behind them. I don’t mind getting them but I am weird about chain mail so I don’t really feel comfortable sending them forward.

#last updated: 03/10/23 #I know some of this is also literally in my description but idk #idk what I'm meant to do for these #idk if I'll keep this #intro post #my post #subject to change I guess

[petricakegames]

Dev Log #1: Haesel Hotel

Welcome to the first official dev log for my new Interactive Fiction project!

"Haesel Hotel" is a short, interactive fiction, horror-murder mystery game made with Twine. Step into 1986 as the concierge of the once historic hotel. Haunted by the reputation its lost, the Haesel is a beacon to the desperate and the destitute. Your story begins as one of those lost souls met its end. The list of suspects is short and most certainly someone you know...

What I've got so far: --functional base in Twine --basic story map --characters! --rough draft of the intro including "character creation" --plot!

I've started a Trello board to get my notes sorted. My creative process needs hand-writing to access the story-teller part of my brain--but constantly flipping through pages to find that one thing I wrote about that one character is...less ideal. So! Transferring to Trello where I can tag and sort. I'm still developing a writing organization system that really works for me and isn't something that needs as much attention as the story itself 🙃

This is the first IF story I've written--hence keeping it short to learn. My current approach to the writing process is to write through the entirety of one plot path beginning to end (with slight "flavor" branches included); rinse and repeat with other plot paths. I've been putting a lot of effort into figuring out the scripting end of Twine that I realized I hadn't put much thought into my approach for actually writing branching fiction. I guess I'll find out if it works!

Up next: keep working on writing the narrative; figure out more badassery with CSS so my UI lives up to my high standards; how to gamify?; narrative vibes; round out those characters!

Up next week: Meet the Suspects! See you then!

#interactive fiction #Haesel Hotel #my game #dev log

[ficklecat]

OC Intro: Phineas Morgan

(dialogue responses to the OC interview prompt)

1. Please state your full name and occupation.

“My name is Phineas Morgan, but you can call me Finn. I’m a teaching assistant for Dr. Nichols, and I’m pursuing my master’s in classic and romantic literature.”

2. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

“Well…I like to read, obviously. I’m probably in the middle of about six different books right now, not including the ones for my studies, so obviously I’m great at commitment. But to my credit, I’ve got four dogs, and I think at least three of them love me. Um…I’m an orphan, which I guess makes me mysterious to some people. Oh and of course the obvious thing - I’ve got albinism. Just in case you were concerned, I do always look like this.”

3. How would you describe your childhood?

“In a word? Chaotic. Of what I can talk about comfortably, most is still sort of jumbled for me. I entered the foster system when I was 9, and I was pretty fortunate for a while before things got bad. I was displaced three times, which is less than the usual by a long shot. But most of my memories are either jumbled and confusing or just outright unpleasant to recall. Nothing was stable. It was…difficult. Chaotic.”

4. When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

“An attorney, like my dad.”

5. Do you have any role models? Tell us a little bit about them.

“My partner Emmanuel’s father is probably one of the best people I know. He’s incredible. He looked out for me when I was a kid even though he didn’t have to. He still does. He’s hilarious and sweet, always trying to help people even when they don’t deserve it. And he can grow anything, anywhere. He texted me a picture the other day of like twenty cucumbers on his kitchen table with a bunch of emojis and the words ‘LOS PEPINOS’ in all caps.” (laughs) “He’s a gem. I love that man.”

6. Are you introverted or extroverted? Why?

“I guess you could say I’m more introverted but I can achieve extraversion pretty well when I need to, like when I’m teaching. As for why…growing up in foster and group homes it’s kind of dangerous to stand out. You just keep to yourself, you don’t know who’s safe. So I guess that’s a reason. But I really think it’s just because my nose is stuck in a book half the time. I usually prefer to listen over speaking in general, too. Easier to learn that way.”

7. How would you describe yourself in three words?

“Academic. Romantic. Cautious.”

8. What do you like to do for fun?

“You’re not gonna believe this, but I like to read.” (laughs) “But I enjoy watching movies too, and spending time with my partners. I like taking my dogs to the park or on hikes, as well, weather permitting.”

9. What's your greatest achievement? Why do you consider this your greatest achievement?

This was answered in an ask, check the tag to find it!

10. What's your biggest goal? How do you hope to achieve this?

“Big goals are hard for me. Right now the biggest goal I have is to graduate. Which I’m on track to do so…that’s good.”

11. What does your dream room/house look like? Would you mind showing some inspiration pictures?

“Ah, I don’t really have an exact layout idea. But I would love a cozy home with a little library and a yard for the dogs. And definitely a king bed. A nice rustic kitchen for Vi and E to cook in. But nothing flashy or massive. Just enough space to spread out a little. To be comfortable in a place to call my own.”

12. How would you describe your style?

“Practical for sure. Academic. I like to be comfortable but presentable. Being able to pick my own clothes was kind of a big deal for me and I went a little crazy at first before I found my style . I’m just glad I figured it out before long. You should have seen me when I was 18…far too much argyle for one man…”

13. What's your favorite song?

“Currently anything from Unreal Unearth. But Bowie’s Life On Mars? is always a favourite of mine.”

14. Where are you happiest?

“When I’m with my partners and dogs. When we cuddle up on the couch at night and I’ve got limbs and paws digging into me…it sounds uncomfortable but I’ve never been happier than when I’m sweaty and crampy and squished into a couch corner like that. It’s my favourite place to be.”

15. Who is the most important person in your life? Why?

“I have two people. Emmanuel and Violet. I love them with every part of my soul. I can’t imagine what life was like without them. I don’t want it.”

16. Do you believe in soulmates? Why or why not?

“Yes. Because I found them.”

17. Have you ever been in love?

“Many times. All the time. I’m in love with my partners. But I’m in love with Gatsby too, you know? I’m in love with Jane Eyre and Sir Gawain. I fell in love with Violet like I fell in love with Zelda Fitzgerald. I fell for Emmanuel like I fell for Alexandre Dumas. Every time I’m with them I’m in love all over again, every time I read beautiful prose I’m falling in it. It’s hard sometimes to be falling that often, but it gives the grey things in my life some colour.”

18. Have you ever been kissed?

“And then some.”

19. Describe an average day in your life.

“Wake up, take out the dogs and feed them breakfast, black tea, then shower and prep for my lectures. Do that, then office hours, lunch, classes, and then it’s pretty much dependent on what E and Vi want to do. We try to eat dinner together every night at the least, or we’ll do homework or study nights in the library rooms during busy weeks.”

20. Describe your nighttime routine.

“After dinner with them I’ll come home and take care of the dogs again. If E and Vi come over we’ll usually talk or play a game or watch something until we turn in. And if none of us get handsy I’ll usually be the last to fall asleep. But if I’m alone, I’ll read or do some more prep work if I need to, or just watch TV until I’m ready for bed. I drink a nightly cocktail of medicinal tea with CBD and some other stuff in it to help me sleep, so I’ll do that about thirty minutes before bed. Then I’ll take the dogs out and do my skincare and it’s lights out.”

21. (Make up a question) Tell us a “low-stakes” unpopular opinion you have.

“Admittedly most of my unpopular opinions are about literature, but I’ll avoid boring you and save those for my lectures. Generally speaking I feel like most of my opinions are unpopular so I have plenty, but I’ll just say for now that I think Crocs are actually fucking awesome. They’re comfortable and adorable and I have been known to wear them in public despite protest from Violet. I’d wear them all the time if I could. I once almost wore them to lecture with a button down and trousers. I don’t even care. Let my feet be comfy. And evidently my most unpopular opinion has to do with oat milk but if I talk about it a certain person I know will actually become genuinely upset with me so I’ll refrain.”

(Manny yelling from the other room) “Oye canche, don’t start with the milk thing again!”

(Finn laughs)

#Phineas #OCs #axel’s brainpals #oc ask game #oc prompt

[selentia-sys]

Intro / Member Info

(header/avatar credit & DNIs below the cut)

hiya! kas here :) i'm part of a plural system with two other headmates, lucas and zaph! we thought we'd make this account for a place to put plural ramblings other than to close friends on discord and maybe find other systems to talk to :) all of us are terrible at writing intro posts wow anyway here's some information about the system in general:

system name: Selentia (if you're talking about as a whole, you can use this name to refer to us collectively! in these cases, we use they/them pronouns in the plural form, since we're multiple people)

our bodily age is 20, we're mixed white & asian, non-binary & transgender, and diagnosed with GAD

individually, we all use different pronouns and have different likes & dislikes because we're all different people :) we don't really vibe with system roles (e.g. protector, persecutor, etc.) for our own system but understand why others find the terminology useful.

okay this is also an intro post for the three of us as individuals so yeah :)

kas: she/her pronouns, age unknown? 20ish

・likes: the color pink!, knives, breakcore/dnb, bullying zaph :)

Lucas: he/him pronouns, age unknown/eternal, nonhuman

・likes: rhythm games, music by sakuzyo and xi, angels

zaph: she/her or it/its pronouns, system host, 20

・likes: celeste, being gay and trans on the internet, #dogmansweep

edit: oh my god i forgot since this blog is for our system you'll need to see our proxy table (posts will be proxied in the tags)

header: Diverse System label's Selentia album cover by 削除 / Sakuzyo (an: if u don't know who that is then get da hell out of here!) (an: im so sorry please forgive me -kas)

avatar made on pixlr, each third of the circle represents one system member (top left: kas, top right: Lucas, bottom: zaph)

・kas: cover image for salad's track Loneliness is My Best Friend

・Lucas: cataclysmical/pechiiv's picrew Fractal Angel Maker

・zaph: /floating in stasis/ original vent art

DNI if you are anti-endo, transphobic/queerphobic, against m-spec gays or lesbians, misogynistic, racist, ableist, or otherwise a bigot/exclutionist of any sort.

WE ARE NOT INTERESTED IN SYSCOURSE/SYSTEM DISCOURSE. WE BELIEVE THAT ALL SYSTEMS ARE VALID.

#pinned post

[opalseedsy]

pinned post time!! this is a generally overview of our boundaries, any info u may need to know, and a brief introduction of our headmates.

quick facts:

we are a traumagenic system

we are bodily 21 years old

we are afab but on average, non-binary

we use they/them irl

we have a very lovely partner :)

we are AuDHD

boundaries/ important info

we don't wish to get into system related (or really any sort of) discourse. if you hold strong beliefs about discourse and are unsure if this means you want to interact w us? feel free to just block us. that is 100% okay, we will not be mad at that.

we are new to understanding that we are a system! so we still have a lot to learn! please excuse any slip ups and feel free to correct us on things like cws/tws, terminology, etc.

we will try to tag anything potentially triggering! we value comfort zones very highly. we might not even post about most intensely triggering topics, as this is a comfort place for us, but everything will be tagged (if u want us to tag something, please shoot us an ask!! its no trouble, really!)

meet the crew! (basic headmate intros, in approximate order of most to least often fronting)

Cypress

They/it/she, adult

interested in spirituality, kinda witchy, the one that makes us exercise (lol), big on gentle self improvement

Protector

headspace home - garden in the back yard, spends the most amount of time outside.

Miki

she/it, adult? Age is not rlly a thing for her

trauma holder?/protector/ emotional regulator?

Head space home - giant aquarium

dorian

they/she, adult

protector??

loves nature and bright sunny places

headspace home - hangs out w cypress in the garden

cecil

they/it, adult

trauma holder, protector (kinda a WTNV introject but not exactly? They've expanded beyond that since developing

generally rlly cheerful and whimsical.

headspace home - not sure yet, mainly livingroom.

rylie

they/he/it, minor/middle

interested in video games, mainly terraria. more anxious and stimmy than the others (also masks much less)

likes grungy type of aesthetic, w goblincore undertones

big fan of bugs, 'trash' animals like raccoons and opossums, and other critters

headspace home - their room. it is dim, decorated w mainly green and dark blue decor, with a lot of trinkets.

icarus

they/he

kinda easily frustrated, a very emotionally responsive headmate. passion for dark academia type aesthetics and productivity, so he gets most of the schoolwork done.

headspace home - large library room, sleeps on top level, hangs out at bottom level reading most of the time.

charlie

he/they/she, adult

traumaholder

interested in crochet, knitting, other crafts. kinda childish, cheerful. our biggest fan of fashion and makeup as a form of self expression. close w owen, sees him as a tough older brother figure.

headspace home - not sure yet, mainly livingroom.

owen

he/they, adult

protector

kinda like if a borzoi was some guy. big fan of music, especially alternative and loud stuff. big sensory seeker so he loves weird food combos B). close w charlie, wants to protect them.

headspace home - not sure yet, mainly livingroom

Nico

They/he, adult

Artist, folky goblincore ish aesthetic.

Headspace home - livingroom? He has his own room but doesn't use it much

i will be editing this post as i figure out more about us as a system!

thank you so much for reading!! have a great day or night!!!

#all of us

[starinthebrightnightsky]

Finally posting an intro on here!!!!

So hi!

I am the host of the system called the Celestial Clutter.

My name is Florean, although the body goes by Oliver. We use Oliver as a collective name of sorts, so that people can get our attention or speak to us without needing to know who is fronting.

We are a monoconcious traumagenic system and we are un diagnosed for the moment, and may never be as we dont want to mess up our future.

We have 21 members at the current moment, and will continue growing as we continue to discover new alters and as they continue to form and stuff.

We are bodily 13

Im gonna use this post as a way to make an intro for the system collectively, and myself.

So heres some stuff about the system!

We are, as i stated previously, bodily 13

We use the collective name Oliver

We are monoconcious, meaning there is only one consciousness for headmates to slip in and out of to be in control of the body. This makes switching quite difficult and rare for us, and rarely happens.

We are also traumagenic, although this blog is very much supportive and welcoming of endos and any systems that are nontraumagenic in any way.

We will allow endo-antis who are chill and dont care that we support endos, just be respectful and if you must confront someone about something, just please be nice and if the discussion escalates please take it off of my blog, if you hadn’t already.

Considering we are bodily 13, please dont be creepy. Adults are allowed, whether you are bodily an adult or not, just be respectful and not creepy.

Now im gonna move onto me!!

My name is Florean, as I stated, and I go by any pronouns, but please use she/her very very sparingly. I am transmasc, apagender, genderfluid, and currently unsure as to what my gender is at the moment. I am also omnisexual, demiromantic and demisexual, and aroaceflux. (demirom and demisex are what i am currently). I am also polyamorous, or if you wanna be specific i am technically ambiamorous.

I am the host of the system, and i have little to no recollection of trauma. I am the person that fronts most often, and that will likely be a while before it changes. I will be signing off with “-🍁”

im also very silly 😼😼

Thats all i really wanna say abt me, but lets make an updating list of all the headmates! I will get rid of this if our alter count goes above like 45, or maybe closer to 30. Its in alphabetical order btw

Angie -☀️

Asmo -💞

Aspen -🦌

Breeze/Breezepelt -☁️

Chrollo -🕷

Dottore -🧪

Fable -👾

Flame -🔥

Florean -🍁

Jack -🧡

Kari -💚

Lucifer -🖤

Mae -🪷

Melody -🌊

Mischa -❤️

Noel -🎵

Orchid -🌷

Salem -💜

Varina -🌸

Whizzer -💧

Xavier -🐳

Also, i want to make a list of tags so that the blog is like, organized y’know?

so far ive used two, so yeah

#important to blog ⭐️🌃

This is for important info and stuff

#shitpost ⭐️🌃

stupid stuff we think of

im also going to put this here even if we havent used it yet as we definitely will

alter intros ⭐️🌃

for introducing us so that you know who is who

Alright, thats all!!!!

Have a great dayyyy!!! -🍁

#system #dissociative identity disorder #other specified dissociative disorder #ossdid #plurality #important to blog ⭐️🌃

[wayward-writers]

Heyy✨ Hope you had a good start to your week! I am here to present yet another Lebanon headcanon. This time it’s about Jack

Eliot, Max and Stacy are friends with Jack! They meet one day when Cas takes Jack to the community garden with him, before that episode where they find out about the supernatural. They help Jack find the perfect spot to plant a few flowers and he listens to them complain about school. After that day, they hang out sometimes. At first they just get some food and walk around the city, but at some point they figure out that Jack never really had a childhood and they try to do some typical kid stuff (drawing with chalk on the pavement is Jack’s favourite)

After they find out about the supernatural, Jack does tell them he’s a nephilim and Max and Stacy are just like okay cool while Eliot asks a ton of questions. They do play around with Jack’s magic, but not with blades (because they’re not stupid). He also takes them to the bunker sometime and shows them all the cool magical stuff

We did! (Had!) And ooooh these are always some of my favourites.

Ahhhh yes please. I wish we had seen more of Max, Stacy, and Elliot and them being friends with Jack is the perfect headcanon!

I had a whole thing about this ready to branch off and it just left my brain. (It's like 5:30 in the morning we'll blame it on that lmao.)

But Jack having friends is always a good thing, especially when they're not playing with knives. (Also maybe Jack learns a little bit about pride from them? Max has a lesbian pin and Jack is like oh what's that? And she explains what the lesbian flag is and then they talk about all the other flags and he comes home with a bi one one day and just like. Hands it to Dean and then skips off somewhere. And Dean's like ????? Standing there just holding this mini flag. (Jack, being a Nephil, knows™️.))

Thank you for the ask, it's a really fun idea! (And sorry if I seem half asleep -- I am.)

#Hehehe #Ahem sorry proffesionalism #Supernatural #Wayward Road #Intro and I really need to sort out the tagging system. #You can literally tell which one of us answers from the tags alone. #dope ideas

[eiirisworkshop]

The Fanfic Author's Guide to Metatext

(As Used on Ao3) by Eiiri

Also available as a PDF here. This thing is 13,000 words.  The PDF is recommended.

Intro: What is Metatext?

Metatext is everything we fanfic authors post along with our story that is not the story itself: title, tags, summary, author's notes, even the rating.

It is how we communicate to potential readers what they're signing themselves up for if they choose to read our story, how we let them make informed decisions regarding which fics they want to read, how we get their interest and, frequently, how they find our story in the first place. A lot of metatext acts as a consent mechanism for readers, it's the informed part of informed consent.

Since most of us who write fanfic also read it, we understand how important this is! But, for the most part, no one ever teaches us how to use metatext; we have to pick it up by osmosis. That makes it hard to learn how to use it well, we all suck at it when we first start out, and some of us may go years without learning particular conventions that seem obvious to others in our community. This creates frustration for everybody.

Enter this guide!

This is meant to be a sort of handbook for fic writers, particularly those of us who post on Archive of Our Own, laying out and explaining the established metatext conventions already in use in our community so we (and our readers!) are all on the same page. It will also provide some best-practices tips.

The point is to give all of us the tools to communicate with our audience as clearly and effectively as possible, so the people who want to read a story like ours can find it and recognize it as what they're looking for, those who don't want to read a story like ours can easily tell it's not their cup of tea and avoid it, nobody gets hurt, and everybody has fun—including us!

Now that we know what we're talking about, let's get on with the guide! The following content sections appear in the order one is expected to provide each kind of metatext when posting a fic on Ao3, but first….

Warning!

This is a guide for all authors on Ao3. As such, it mentions subject matter and kinds of fic that you personally might hate or find disgusting, but which are allowed under the Archive's terms of use. There are no graphic descriptions or harsh language in the guide itself, but it does acknowledge the existence of fic you may find distasteful and explains how to approach metatext for such fics.

Some sexual terminology is used in an academic context.

A note from the author:

This guide reflects the conventions of the English-language fanfiction community circa 2021. Conventions may differ in other language communities, and although many of our conventions have been in place for decades (praise be to our Star Trek loving foremothers) fanfiction now exists primarily in the realm of internet fandom where things tend to change rather quickly, so some conventions in this guide may die out while other new conventions, not covered in this guide, arise.

This is not official or in any way produced by the Archive of Our Own (Ao3), and though some actual site rules are mentioned, it is not a rulebook. Primarily, it is a descriptivist take on how the userbase uses metatext to communicate amongst ourselves, provided in the interest of making that communication easier and more transparent for everyone, especially newer users.

Contents

How To Use This Guide Ratings Archive Warnings Fandom Tags Category Relationship Tags Character Tags Additional Tags Titles Summaries Author's Notes Series and Chapters Parting Thoughts

How To Use This Guide

Well, read it.  Or have it read to you.

This isn't a glossary, it's a handbook, and it's structured more like an academic paper or report, but there's lots and lots of examples in it!

Many of these examples are titles of real media and the names of characters from published media, or tags quoted directly from Ao3 complete with punctuation and formatting.

Some examples are more generic and use the names Alex, Max, Sam, Chris, Jamie, and Tori for demonstration purposes. In other generic examples, part of an example tag or phrase may be sectioned off with square brackets to show where in that tag or phrase you would put the appropriate information to complete it.  This will look something like “Top [Character A]” where you would fill in a character's name.

This guide presumes that you know the basics of how to use Ao3, at least from the perspective of reading fic. If you don't, much of this guide may be difficult to understand and will be much less helpful to you, though not entirely useless.

Ratings

Most fanfic hosting sites provide ratings systems that work a lot like the ratings on movies and videogames.

Ao3's system has four ratings:

General

Teen

Mature

Explicit

These seem like they should be pretty self-explanatory, and the site's own official info pop-up (accessible by clicking the question mark next to the section prompt) gives brief, straightforward descriptions for each of them.

Even so, many writers have found ourselves staring at that dropdown list, thinking about what we've written, and wondering what's the right freaking rating for this?  How do I know if it's appropriate for “general audiences” or if it needs to be teen and up? What's the difference between Mature and Explicit?

The best way to figure it out is often to think about your fic in comparison to mainstream media.

General is your average Disney or Dreamworks movie, Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon shows, video games like Mario, Kirby, and Pokemon.

There may be romance, but no sexual content or discussion. Scary things might happen and people might get hurt, but violence is non-graphic and usually mild. Adults may be shown drinking alcohol or smoking tobacco, and some degree of intoxication may be shown (usually played for laughs and not focused on), but hard drug use is generally not shown or discussed.  There is little to no foul language written out and what language there may be is mild, though harsher swears may be implied by narration. There are no explicit F-bombs or slurs.

Teen is more like a Marvel movie, most network television shows (things like The Office, Supernatural, or Grey's Anatomy), video games like Final Fantasy, Five Nights at Freddie's, and The Sims.

There might be some sex and sexual discussion, but nothing explicit is shown—things usually fade to black or are leftimplied. More intense danger, more severe injuries described in greater detail, and a higher level of violence may be present.  Substance use may be discussed and intoxication shown, but main characters are unlikely to be shown doing hard drugs. Some swearing and other harsh language may be present, possibly including an F-bomb or two.  In longer works, that might mean an F-bomb every few chapters.

Mature is, in American terms, an R-rated movie* like Deadpool, Fifty Shades of Grey, The Exorcist, and Schindler's List; certain shows from premium cable networks or streaming services like Game of Thrones, Shameless, Breaking Bad, and Black Sails; videogames like Bioshock, Assassin's Creed, Grand Theft Auto, and The Witcher.

Sex may be shown and it might be fairly explicit, but it's not as detailed or graphic or as much the focus of the work as it would be if it were porn. Violence, danger, and bodily harm may be significant and fairly graphic. Most drug use is fair game. Swearing and harsh language may be extensive.

Explicit is, well, extremely explicit. This is full on porn, the hardcore horror movies, and snuff films.

Sex is highly detailed and graphic. Violence and injury is highly detailed and graphic. Drug use and its effects may be highly detailed and graphic. Swearing and harsh language may be extreme, including extensive use of violent slurs.

Please note that both Mature and Explicit fics are intended for adult audiences only, but that does not mean a teenaged writer isn't going to produce fics that should be rated M or E.  Ratings should reflect the content of the fic, not the age of the author.

Strictly speaking, you don't have to choose any of these ratings; Ao3 has a “Not Rated” option, but for purposes of search results and some other functions, Not Rated fics are treated by the site as Explicit, just in case, which means they end up hidden from a significant portion of potential readers. It really is in your best interest as a writer who presumably wants people to see their stories, to select a rating. It helps readers judge if yours is the kind of story they want right now, too.

Rating a fic is a subjective decision, there is some grey area in between each level. If you're not quite sure where your fic falls, best practice is to go with the more restrictive rating.

*(Equivalent to an Australian M15+ or R18+, Canadian 14A, 18A or 18+, UK 15 or 18, German FSK 16 or FSK 18.)

Warnings

Ao3 uses a set of standard site-wide Archive Warnings to indicate that a work contains subject matter that falls into one or more of a few categories that some readers are likely to want to avoid.  Even when posting elsewhere, it's courteous to include warnings of this sort.

These warnings are:

Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Major Character Death

Rape/Non-Con

Underage

Just like with the ratings, the site provides an info-pop up that explains what each warning is for. They're really exactly what it says on the tin: detailed descriptions of violence, injury, and gore; the death of a character central to canon or tothe story being told; non-consensual sex i.e. rape; and depictions of underage sex, which the site defines as under the age of 18 for humans—Ao3 doesn't care if your local age of consent or majority is lower than that.

In addition to the four standard warnings above, the warnings section has two other choices:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings

These do not mean the same thing and cannot be used interchangeably. “No Archive Warnings Apply” means that absolutely nothing in your fic falls into any of the four standard warning categories. “Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings” means that you the author are opting out of the warning system; your fic could potentially contain things that fall into any and all of the four standard warning categories.

There's nothing wrong with selecting Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings! It may mean that some readers will avoid your fic because they're not sure it's safe for them, and you might need to use more courtesy tags than you otherwise would (we'll talk about courtesy tags later), but that's okay! Opting out of the warning system can be a way to avoid spoilers,* and is also good for when you're just not sure if what you've written deserves one of the Archive warnings. In that case, the best practice is to select either the warning it might deserve or Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings, then provide additional information in other tags, the summary, or an initial author's note.

Unless you're opting out of using the warning system, select all the warnings that apply to your fic, if any of them do. So if a sixteen year old main character has consensual sex then gets killed in an accident that you've written out in excruciating detail, that fic gets three out of the four standard warnings: Underage, Major Character Death, and Graphic Depictions Of Violence.

*(Fandom etiquette generally favors thorough tagging and warning over avoiding spoilers. It doesn't ruin the experience of a story to have a general sense of what's going to happen. If it did, we wouldn't all keep reading so many “there was only one bed” fics.)

Fandom Tags

What fandom or fandoms is your fic for?  You definitely know what you wrote it for, but that doesn't mean it's obvious what to tag it as.

Sometimes, it is obvious! You watched a movie that isn't based on anything, isn't part of a series, and doesn't have any spinoffs, tie-ins or anything else based on it. You wrote a fic set entirely within the world of this movie. You put this movie as the fandom for your fic. Or maybe you read a book and wrote a fic for it, and there is a movie based on the book, but the movie is really different and you definitely didn't use anything that's only in the movie. You put the book as the fandom for your fic.

All too often, though, it's not that clear.

What if you wrote a fic for something where there's a movie based on a book, but the movie's really different, and you've used both things that are only in the movie and things that are only in the book?  In that case you either tag your fic as both the movie and the book, or see if the fandom has an “all media types” tag and use that instead of the separate tags.  If the fandom doesn't have an “all media types” tag yet, you can make one! Just type it in.

“All media types” fandom tags are also useful for cases where there are lots of inter-related series, like Star Wars; there are several tellings of the story in different media but they're interchangeable or overlap significantly, like The Witcher; or the fandom has about a zillion different versions so it's very hard, even impossible, to say which ones your fic does and doesn't fit, like Batman. Use your best judgement as to whether you need to include a more specific fandom tag such as “Batman (Movies 1989-1997)” alongside the “all media types” fandom tag, but try to avoid including very many. The point of the “all media types” tag is to let you leave off the specific tags for every version.

In a situation where one piece of media has a spinoff, maybe several spinoffs, and you wrote a fic that includes things from more than one of them, you might want use the central work's “& related fandoms” tag. For example, the “Doctor Who & Related Fandoms” tag gets used for fics that include things from a combination of any era of Doctor Who, Torchwood, and The Sarah Jane Adventures.

And don't worry, from the reader-side of the site the broadest fandom tags are prioritized. The results page for an “all media types” or “& related fandoms” search includes works tagged with the more specific sub-tags for that fandom, the browse-by-fandom pages show the broadest tag for each fandom included, and putting a fandom into the search bar presumes the broadest tag for that fandom.  A search for “Star Wars - All Media Types” will pull up work that only has a subtag for that fandom, like “The Mandalorian (TV).” You don't have to put every specific fandom subtag for people to find your fic.

If you wrote a fic for something that's an adaptation of an older work—especially an older work that's been adapted a lot, like Sherlock Holmes or The Three Musketeers—it can be hard to know how you should tag it. The best choice is to put the adaptation as the fandom, for instance “Sherlock (TV),” then, if you're also using aspects of the older source work that aren't in the adaptation, also put a broad fandom tag such as “Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms.” Do not tag it as being fic for the source work—in our Sherlock example that would be tagging it “Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle”—unless you are crossing over the source work and the adaptation. Otherwise, the specific fandom subtag for the source work ends up clogged with fic for the adaptation, which really is a different thing.

By the same token, fic for the source work shouldn't be tagged as being for the adaptation, or the adaptation's subtag will get clogged.

The same principle applies to fandoms that have been rebooted. Don't tag fic for the reboot as being for the original, or fic for the original as being for the reboot. Don't tag a fic as being for both unless the reboot and original are actually interacting. Use an “& related fandoms” tag for the original if your fic for the reboot includes some aspects of the original that weren't carried over but you haven't quite written a crossover between the two. Good examples of these situations can be seen with “Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)” vs. “Star Trek: The Original Series,” and “She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)” vs. “She-Ra: Princess Of Power (1985).”

Usually, this kind of mistagging as a related fandom happens when someone writes a fic for something that is or has a reboot, spinoff, or adaptation, but they're only familiar with one of the related pieces of media, and they mistakenly presume the fandoms are the same or interchangeable because they just don't know the difference.  It's an honest mistake and it doesn't make you a bad or fake fan to not know, but it can be frustrating for readers who want fic for one thing and find the fandom tag full of fic for something else.

In order to avoid those kinds of issues, best practice is to assume fandoms are not interchangeable no matter how closely related they are, and to default to using a tag pair of the most-specific-possible sub-fandom tag + the broadest possible fandom tag when posting a fic you're not entirely sure about, for instance “Star Trek” and “Star Trek: Enterprise.”

The Marvel megafandom has its own particular tagging hell going on. Really digging into and trying to make sense of that entire situation would require its own guide, but we can go through some general tips.

There is a general “Marvel” fandom tag and tags for both “The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom” and “The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types.” Most of us who write Marvel fic are working with a cherry picked combination of canons from the MCU, various comics runs, both timelines of X-Men movies, and possibly several decades worth of cartoons. That's what these tags are for.

If your cherry picked Marvel fic is more X-Men than Avengers, go for the “X-Men - All Media Types” tag.

If you are primarily working with MCU canon, use the MCU specific tags rather than “all media types” and add specific tags for individual comics runs—like Earth 616 or the Fraction Hawkeye comics—if you know you're lifting particular details from the comics.  If you're just filling in gaps in MCU canon with things that are nebulously “from the comics” don't worry about tagging for that, it's accepted standard practice in the fandom at this point, use a broader tag along with your MCU-specific tag if you want to.

Same general idea for primarily movie-verse X-Men fics. Use the movie-specific tags.

If your fic mostly draws from the comics, use the comics tags. If you're focusing on an individual run, show, or movie series rather than an ensemble or large swath of the megafranchise, tag for that and leave off the broader fandom tags.

Try your best to minimize the number of fandom tags on your Marvel work. Ideally, you can get it down to two or three. Even paring it down as much as you can you might still end up with about five.  If you're in the double digits, take another look to see if all the fandom tags you've included are really necessary, or if some of them are redundant or only there to represent characters who are in the fic but that the fic doesn't focus on. Many readers tend to search Marvel fics by character or pairing tags, it's more important that you're thorough there. For the fandom tags it's more important that you're clear.

If you write real person fiction, you need to tag it as an RPF fandom. Fic about actors who are in a show together does not belong on the fandom tag for that show. There are separate RPF fandom tags for most shows and film franchises. Much like the adaptation/source and reboot/original situations discussed earlier, a fic should really only be tagged with both a franchise's RPF tag and its main tag if something happens like the actors—or director or writer!—falling into the fictional world or meeting their characters.

Of course, not all RPF is about actors. Most sports have RPF tags, there are RPF tags for politics from around the world and for various historical settings, the fandom tags for bands are generally presumed to be RPF tags, and there is a general Real Person Fiction tag.

In order to simplify things for readers, it's best practice to use the general Real Person Fiction tag in addition to your fandom-specific tag. You may even want to put “RPF” as a courtesy tag in the Additional Tags section, too. This is because Ao3 isn't currently set up to recognize RPF as the special flavor of fic that it is in the same way that the site recognizes crossovers as special, so it can be very difficult to either seek out or avoid RPF since it's scattered across hundreds of different fandom tags.

On the subject of crossovers—they can make fandom tagging even more daunting. Even for a crossover with lots of fandoms involved, though, you just have to follow the same guidelines as to tag a single-fandom work for each fandom in the crossover. The tricky part is figuring out if what you wrote is really a crossover, or just an AU informed by another fandom—we'll talk about that later.

There are some cases where it's really hard to figure out what fandom something belongs to, like if you wrote a fanfic of someone else's fanfic, theirs is an AU and yours is about their OC, not any of the characters from canon. What do you do?! Well, you do not tag it as being a fanfic for the same thing theirs was. Put the title of their fic (or name of their series) as the fandom for your fic, attributed to their Ao3 handle just like any other fandom is attributed to its author. Explain the situation in either the summary or the initial author's note. Also, ask the author's permission before posting something like this.

What if you wrote a story about your totally original D&D character? The fandom is still D&D, you want the “Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)” tag.

What if there's not a fandom tag on the Archive yet for what you wrote? Not a problem! You can type in a new one if you're the first person to post something for a particular fandom. Do make sure, though, that the fandom isn't just listed by a different name than you expect. Many works that aren't originally in English—including anime—are listed by their original language title or a direct translation first, and sometimes a franchise or series's official name might not be what you personally call it, for instance many people think of Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials series as The Golden Compass series, so it's best to double check.

What if you wrote an entirely new original story that's not based on anything?  Excellent job, that takes a lot of work, but that probably doesn't belong on Ao3!  The Archive is primarily meant as a repository for fannish content, but in a few particular circumstances things we'd consider Original Work may be appropriate content for the Archive as well. Double check the Archive's Terms of Service FAQ and gauge if what you wrote falls under the scope of what is allowed. If what you wrote really doesn't fit here, post it somewhere else or try to get it published if you feel like giving it a shot.

Category

What Ao3 means by category is “does this fic focus on sex or romance, and if so what combination of genders are involved in that sex or romance?”

The category options are:

F/F

F/M

Gen

M/M

Multi

Other

The F/F, F/M, and M/M categories are for stories focused on pairings of two women, a woman and a man, and two men, respectively.  These refer to sexual and/or romantic pairings.

The Other category is for stories focused on (sexual and/or romantic) pairings where one or both partners are not strictly male or female, such as nonbinary individuals, people from cultures with gender systems that don't match to the Western man-woman system, and nonhuman characters for whom biological sex works differently or is nonexistent, including aliens, robots, and inanimate objects or abstract concepts. There are some problems with treating nonbinary humans, eldritch tentacle monsters, sexless androids, and wayward container ships as all the same category, but it's the system we currently have to work with. Use Additional Tags to clarify the situation.

Multi is for stories in which several (sexual and/or romantic) relationships are focused on or which focus on relationships with multiple partners, including cases of polyamory, serial monogamy, strings of hookups with different people, and orgies.  A fic will also show as “Multi” if you, the author, have selected more than one category for the fic, even if none of those are the Multi category. Realistically, the Archive needs separate “Multiple Categories” and “Poly” options, but for now we have to work with this system in which the two are combined.  Use Additional Tags to clarify the situation.

Gen is for stories that do not contain or are not focused on sex or romance. Romance may be present in a gen fic but it's going to be in the background.  While rare, there is such a thing as a sexually explicit gen fic—solo masturbation which does not feature fantasizing about another character is explicit gen fic; a doctor character seeing a series of patients with sex-related medical needs following an orgy may qualify if the orgy is not shown and the doctor is being strictly professional—but such fic needs to be rated, otherwise tagged, and explained carefully in the summary and/or author's note.

Much like the warnings section, category is a “select all that apply” situation. Use your best judgement. For a fic about a polyamorous relationship among a group of women, it's entirely appropriate to tag it as both F/F and Multi.  A poly fic with a combination of men and women in the relationship could be shown as both M/M and F/M, Multi, or all three. A fic that focuses equally on one brother and his husband and the other brother and his wife should be tagged both M/M and F/M, and could be tagged as Multi but you might decided not to just to be clear that there's no polyamory going on. If you wrote a fic about two characters who are both men in canon, but you wrote one of them as nonbinary, you could tag it M/M, Other, or both depending on what you feel is representative and respectful.

When dealing with trans characters, whether they're trans in canon or you're writing them as such, the category selection should match the character's gender.  If there's a character who is a cis woman in canon, but who you're writing as a trans man, you categorize the fic based on his being a man. If there's a character who is a cis man in canon, but whom you're writing as a trans man, he is still a man and the fic should be categorized accordingly. When dealing with nonbinary characters the fic should really be classed as Other though, by convention, fics about characters who are not nonbinary in canon may be classed based on the character's canon gender as well or instead. When dealing with gender swapped characters—i.e. a canonically cis male superhero who you're writing as a cis woman—class the fic using the gender you wrote her with, not the gender he is in canon.

Most of the time, gen fics should not be categorized jointly with anything else because a fic should only be categorized based on the ships it focuses on, and a gen fic should not be focusing on a ship in the first place.*

*(One of the few circumstances in which it might make sense to class a fic as both gen and something else is when writing about Queerplatonic Relationships, but that is a judgement call and depends on the fic.)

Relationship Tags

The thing about relationship tagging that people most frequently misunderstand or just don't know is the difference between “Character A/Character B” and “Character A & Character B.”

Use a “/” for romantic or sexual relationships, such as spouses, people who are dating, hookups, and friends with benefits. Use “&” for platonic or familial relationships, such as friends, siblings, parents with their kids, coworkers, and deeply connected mortal enemies who are not tragically in love.

This is where we get the phrase “slash fic.” Originally, that meant any fic focused on a romantic paring, but since so much of the romantic fic being produced was about pairs of men, “slash fic” came to mean same-sex pairings, especially male same-sex pairings. Back in earlier days of fandom, pre-Ao3 and even pre-internet, there was a convention that when writing out a different-sex pairing, you did so in man/woman order, while same-sex pairings were done top/bottom. Some authors, especially those who have been in the fic community a long time, may still do this, but the convention has not been in consistent, active use for many years, so you don't have to worry about putting the names in the “correct” order. Part of why that died out is we, as a community, have gotten less strict and more nuanced in our understandings of sex and relationships, we're writing non-penetrative sex more than we used to, and we're writing multi-partner relationships and sex more than we used to, so strictly delineating “tops” and “bottoms” has gotten less important and less useful.

The convention currently in use on Ao3 is that the names go in alphabetical order for both “/” and “&” relationships. In most cases, the Archive uses the character's full name instead of a nickname or just a given name, like James "Bucky" Barnes instead of just Bucky or James. We'll talk more about conventions for how to input character names in the Characters section. The Archive will give you suggestions as you type—if one of them fits what you mean but is slightly different from how you were typing it, for instance it's in a different order, please use the tag suggested! Consistency in tags across users helps the site work more smoothly for everybody.

This is really not the place for ship nicknames like Puckleberry, Wolfstar, or Ineffable Wives. Use the characters' names.

Now that you know how to format the relationship tag to say what you mean, you have to figure out what relationships in your fic to tag for.

The answer is you tag the relationships that are important to the story you're telling, the ones you spend time and attention following, building up, and maybe even breaking down. Tagging for a ship is not a promise of a happy ending for that pair; you don't have to limit yourself to tagging only the end-game ships if you're telling a story that's more complicated than “they get together and live happily ever after.” That said, you should generally list the main ship—the one you focus on the most—first on the list, and that will usually be the end-game ship. You should also use Additional Tags, the summary, and author's notes to make it clear to readers if your fic does not end happily for a ship you've tagged. Otherwise readers will assume that a fic tagged as being about a ship will end well for that ship, because that's what usually happens, and they'll end up disappointed and hurt, possibly feeling tricked or lied to, when your fic doesn't end well for that ship

You don't have to, and honestly shouldn't, tag for every single relationship that shows up in your fic at all. A character's brief side fling mentioned in passing, or a relationship between two background characters should not be listed under the Relationship tag section. You can list them in the format “minor Character A/Character C” or “Character C/Character D – mentions of” in the Additional Tags section if you want to, or just tag “Minor or Background Relationship(s)” under either the Relationship tag section or in the Additional Tags section.

There are two main reasons to not tag all those minor relationships. The first is to streamline your tags, which makes them clearer and more readable, and therefore more useful. The second reason is because certain ships are far more common as minor or background relationships than as the focus of a work, so tagging all your non-focus focus ships leads to the tags for these less popular ships getting clogged with stories they appear in, but that are not about them. That is, of course, very frustrating for readers who really want to read stories that focus on these ships.

If your fic contains a major relationship between a canon character and an OC, reader-insert, or self-insert, tag it as such. The archive already has /Original Character, /Reader, /You, and /Me tags for most characters in most fandoms. If such a relationship tag isn't already in use, type it in yourself. There are OC/OC tags, too, some of which specify gender, some of which do not.  All the relationship tags that include OCs stack the gender-specific versions of the tags under the nongendered ones. Use these tags as appropriate.

For group relationships, both polycules and multi-person friendships, you “/” or “&” all the names involved in alphabetical order, so Alex/Max/Sam are dating while Chris & Jamie & Tori are best friends. For a poly situation where not everyone is dating each other you should tag it something like “Alex/Max, Alex/Sam” because Alex is dating both Max and Sam, but Max and Sam are not romantically or sexually involved with each other. Use your judgement as to whether you still want to include the Alex/Max/Sam trio tag, and whether you should also use a “Sam & Max” friendship tag.

Generally, romantic “/” type relationships are emphasized over “&” type relationships in fic. It is more important that you tag your “/”s thoroughly and accurately than that you tag your “&”s at all. This is because readers are far more likely to either be looking for or be squicked by particular “/” relationships than they are “&” relationships. You can tag the same pair of characters as both / and & if both their romance and their friendship is important to the story, but a lot of people see this as redundant. If you're writing incest fic, use the / tag for the pair not the & tag and put a courtesy tag for “incest” in the Additional Tags section; this is how readers who do not want to see incestuous relationships avoid that material.

Queerplatonic Relationships, Ambiguous Relationships, Pre-Slash, and “Slash If You Squint” are all frequently listed with both the “/” and “&” forms of the pairing; use your best judgement as to whether one or the other or both is most appropriate for what you've written and clarify the nature of the relationship in your Additional Tags.

Overall, list your “/” tags first, then your “&” tags.

Character Tags

Tagging your characters is a lot like tagging your relationships. Who is your fic about? That's who you put in your character tags.

You don't have to and really should not tag every single background character who shows up for just a moment in the story, for pretty much the same reasons you shouldn't tag background relationships.  We don't want to clog less commonly focused on characters' tags with stories they don't feature prominently in.

You do need to tag the characters included in your Relationship tags.

A character study type of fic might only have one character you need to tag for. Romantic one shots frequently only have two. Longfics and fics with big ensemble casts can easily end up with a dozen characters or more who really do deserve to be tagged for.

Put them in order of importance. This doesn't have to be strict hierarchal ranking, you can just arrange them into groups of “main characters,” “major supporting characters,” and “minor supporting characters.” Nobody less than a minor supporting character should be tagged. Even minor supporting characters show up for more than one line.

If everyone in the fic is genuinely at the same level of importance (which does happen, especially with small cast fics), then order doesn't really matter. You can arrange them by order of appearance or alphabetically by name if you want to be particularly neat about it.

Do tag your OCs! Some people love reading about OCs and want to be able to find them; some people can't stand OCs and want to avoid them at all costs; most people are fine with OCs sometimes, but might have to be in the mood for an OC-centric story or only be comfortable with OCs in certain contexts. Regardless, though, Character tags are here to tell readers who the story is about, and that includes new faces. Original Characters are characters and if they're important to the story, they deserve to be tagged for just like canon characters do.

There are tags for “Original Character(s),” “Original Male Character(s),” and “Original Female Character(s).” Use these tags!  If you have OCs you're going to be using frequently in different stories, type up a character tag in the form “[OC's Name] – Original Character” and use that in addition to the generic OC tags.

Also tag “Reader,” “You,” or “Me” as a character if you've written a reader- or self-insert.

You can use the “Minor Characters” tag to wrap up everybody, both OC and canon, who doesn't warrant their own character tag. Remember, though, that this tag is also used to refer to minor canon characters who may not have their own official names.

Just like when tagging for relationships, the convention when tagging for characters is to use their full name. The suggestions the Archive gives you as you type will help you use the established way of referring to a given character.

Characters who go by more than one name usually have their two most used names listed together as one tag with the two names separated by a vertical bar like “Andy | Andromache of Scythia.” This also gets used sometimes for characters who have different names in an adaptation than in the source text, or a different name in the English-language localization of a work than in the original language. For character names from both real-world and fictional languages and cultures that put family or surname before the given name—like the real Japanese name Takeuchi Naoko or the made up Bajoran name Kira Nerys—that order is used when tagging, even if you wrote your fic putting the given name first.

Some characters' tags include the fandom they're from in parentheses after their name like “Connor (Detroit: Become Human).” This is mostly characters with ordinary given names like Connor and no canon surname, characters who have the same full name as a character in another fandom, such as Billy Flynn the lawyer from the musical Chicago and Billy Flynn the serial killer played by Tim Curry in Criminal Minds, and characters based on mythological, religious, or historical figures or named for common concepts such as Lucifer, Loki, Amethyst, Death, and Zero that make appearances in multiple fandoms.

Additional Tags

Additional Tags is one of the most complicated, and often the longest, section of metatext we find ourselves providing when we post fic. It's also the one that gives our readers the greatest volume of information.

That, of course, is what makes it so hard for us to do well.

It can help to break down Additional Tags into three main functions of tag: courtesy tags, descriptive tags, and personal tags.

Courtesy tags serve as extensions of the rating and warning systems. They can help clarify the rating, provide more information about the Archive Warnings you've used or chosen not to use, and give additional warnings to tell readers there are things in this fic that may be distasteful, upsetting, or triggering but that the Archive doesn't have a standard warning for.

Descriptive tags give the reader information about who's in this fic, what kind of things happen, what tropes are in play, and what the vibe is, as well as practical information about things like format and tense.

Personal tags tell the readers things about us, the author, our process, our relationship to our fic, and our thoughts at the time of posting.

It doesn't really matter what order you put these tags in, but it is best practice to try to clump them: courtesy tags all together so it's harder for a reader to miss an important one, ship-related info tags together, character-related info tags together, etc.

There are tons and tons of established tags on Ao3, and while it's totally fine, fun, and often necessary to make up your own tags, it's also important to use established tags that fit your fic.  For one thing, using established tags makes life easier for the tag wranglers behind the scenes. Using a new tag you just made up that means the same thing as an established tag makes more work for the tag wranglers. We like the tag wranglers, they're all volunteers, and they're largely responsible for the search and sorting features being functional. Be kind to the tag wranglers.

For basically the same reasons, using established tags makes it easier for readers to find your fic. If a reader either searches by a tag or uses filters on another search to “Include” that tag, and you didn't use that tag, your fic will not show up for them even if what you wrote is exactly what they're looking for.  Established tags can be searched by exactly the same way as you search by fandom or pairing, your off the cuff tags cannot.

Let's talk about some well-known established tags and common tag types, divvied up by main function.

Courtesy

A lot of courtesy tags are specific warnings like “Dubious Consent,” “Incest,” “Drug Use,” “Extremely Underage,” “Toxic Relationship,” and “Abuse.” Many of these have even more specific versions such as “Recreational Drug Use” and “Nonconsensual Drug Use,” or “Mildly Dubious Consent” and “Extremely Dubious Consent.”

Giving details about what, if any, drugs are used or mentioned, specifying what kinds of violence or bodily harm are discussed or depicted, details about age differences or power-imbalanced relationships between characters who date or have sex, discussion or depictions of suicide, severe or terminal illness, or mental health struggles is useful. It helps give readers a clear sense of what they'll encounter in your fic and decide if they're up for it.

One the most useful courtesy warning tags is “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat” which basically means “there are things in this fic which are really screwed up and may be disturbing, read at your own risk, steer clear if you're not sure.” This tag—like all courtesy warnings, really—is a show of good faith, by using it you are being a responsible, and thoughtful member of the fanfic community by giving readers the power and necessary information to make their own informed decisions about what they are and are not comfortable reading.

Saying to “Heed the tags” is quite self-explanatory and, if used, should be the last or second to last tag so it's easy to spot.  Remember, though, that “Heed the tags” isn't useful if your tags aren't thorough and clear.

“Additional Warnings In Author's Note” is one of only things that should ever go after “Heed the tags.”  If you use this, your additional warnings need to go in the author's note at the very beginning of the fic, not the one at the end of the first chapter.  If your additional warnings write up is going to be very long because it's highly detailed, then it can go at the bottom of the chapter with a note at the beginning indicating that the warnings are at the bottom. Some authors give an abbreviated or vague set of warnings in the initial note, then longer, highly detailed, spoilery warnings in the end note. It's best to make it as simple and straightforward as possible for readers to access warnings.

Tagging with “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat,” “Heed the tags,” or “Additional Warnings In Author's Note” is not a substitute for thorough and appropriate courtesy tagging. These are extra reminders to readers to look closely at the other warnings you've given.

While most courtesy tags are warnings, some are assurances like “No Lesbians Die” or “It's Not As Bad As It Sounds.”  A fic tagged for rape or dub-con may get a tag assuring that the consent issues are not between the characters in the main ship; or a fic with a premise that sounds likely to involve lack of consent but actually doesn't may get a tag that it's “NOT rape/non-con.” A tag like “Animal Death” may be immediately followed by a freeform tag assuring that the animal that dies is not the protagonist's beloved horse.

Descriptive

There are a few general kinds of descriptive tags including character-related, ship-related, temporal, relation-to-canon, trope-related, smut details, and technical specifications.

Many character- and ship-related tags simply expand on the Character and Relationship tags we've already talked about.  This is usually the place to specify details about OCs and inserts, such as how a reader-insert is gendered.

When it comes to character-related tags, one of the most common types in use on Ao3 and in fandom at large is the bang-path. This is things like werewolf!Alex, trans!Max, top!Sam, kid!Jamie, and captain!Tori. Basically, a bang-path is a way of specifying a version of a character. We've been using this format for decades; it comes from the very first email systems used by universities in the earliest days of internet before the World Wide Web existed. It's especially useful for quickly and concisely explaining the roles of characters in an AU. Nowadays this is also one of the primary conventions for indicating who's top and who's bottom in a ship if that's information you feel the need to establish.  The other current convention for indicating top/bottom is as non-bang-path character-related tags in the form “Top [Character A], Bottom [Character B].”

Other common sorts of character tags are things like “[Character A] Needs a Hug,” “Emotionally Constipated [Character B],” and “[Character C] is a Good Dad.”

Some character-related tags don't refer to a particular character by name, but tell readers something about what kinds of characters are in the fic. Usually, this indicates the minority status of characters and may indicate whether or not that minority status is canon, as in “Nonbinary Character,” “Canon Muslim Character,” “Deaf Character,” and “Canon Disabled Character.”

Down here in the tags is the place to put ship nicknames!  This is also where to say things like “They're idiots your honor” or indicate that they're “Idiots in Love,” maybe both since “Idiots in Love” is an established searchable tag but “They're idiots your honor” isn't yet. If your fandom has catchphrases related to your ship, put that here if you want to.

If relevant, specify some things about the nature of relationships in your fic such as “Ambiguous Relationship,” “Queerplatonic Relationships,” “Polyamory,” “Friends With Benefits,” “Teacher-Student Relationship,” and so on. Not all fics need tags like these. Use your best judgement whether your current fic does.

Temporal tags indicate when your fic takes place. That can be things like “Pre-Canon” and “Post-Canon,” “Pre-War,” “Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” “1996-1997 NHL season,” “Future Fic,” and so on.  These tags may be in reference to temporal landmarks in canon, in the real world, or both depending on what's appropriate.

Some temporal tags do double duty by also being tags about the fic's relationship to canon. The Pre- and Post-Canon tags are like that.

Other relation-to-canon type tags are “Canon Compliant” for fics that fit completely inside the framework of canon without changing or contradicting anything, “Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence” for fics that are compliant up to a certain point in canon, then veer off (maybe because you started writing the fic when the show was on season two but now it's at season four and you're not incorporating everything from the newer seasons, maybe a character died and you refuse to acknowledge that, maybe you just want to explore what might have happened if a particular scene had gone differently), and the various other Alternate Universe tags for everything from coffee shop AUs and updates to modern settings, to realities where everyone is a dragon or no one has their canon superpowers.

The established format for these tags is “Alternate Universe – [type],” but a few have irregular names as well, such as “Wingfic” for AUs in which characters who don't ordinarily have wings are written as having wings.

If you have written an AU, please tag clearly what it is! Make things easy on both the readers who are in the mood to read twenty royalty AUs in a row, the readers who are in the middle of finals week and the thought of their favorite characters suffering through exams in a college AU would destroy the last shred of their sanity but would enjoy watching those characters teach high school, and the readers who really just want to stick to the world of canon right now.

Admittedly, it can get a little confusing what AU tag or tags you need to describe what you've written since most of us have never had a fandom elder sit us down and explain what the AU tags mean. One common mix up is tagging things “Alternate Universe - Modern Setting” when what's meant is “Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence.”  The misunderstanding here is usually reading “Alternate Universe - Modern Setting” and thinking it means an alternate version of the canon universe that is set at the same time as the canon universe, but is different in some way. That's not how the tag is meant to be used, though.

The Modern Setting AU tag is specifically for fic set now (at approximately the same time period it was written), for media that's canonically set somewhere that is very much not the present of the real world. This can mean things set in the past (like Jane Austen), the future (like Star Trek), or a fantasy world entirely different from our own (like Lord of the Rings or Avatar: the Last Airbender). Fic for a canon that's set more or less “now” doesn't need the Modern Setting AU tag, even if the world of canon is different from our own. If you're removing those differences by putting fantasy or superhero characters in a world without magic or supersoldier serum, you might want the “Alternate Universe - No Powers” tag instead.

Some of the most fun descriptive tags are trope tags. This includes things like “Mutual Pining,” “Bed Sharing” for when your OTP gets to their hotel room to find There Was Only One Bed, “Fake Dating,” “Angst,” Fluff,” “Hurt/Comfort” and all its variants.  Readers love tropes at least as much as we love writing them and want to be able to find their favorites. Everyone also has tropes they don't like and would rather avoid. Tagging them allows your fic to be filtered in and out by what major tropes you've used.

Explicit fics, and sometimes fics with less restrictive ratings, that contain sex usually have tags indicating details about the nature of the sexual encounter(s) portrayed and what sex acts are depicted. These are descriptive tags, but they also do double duty as courtesy tags. This is very much a situation in which tags are a consent mechanism; by thoroughly and clearly tagging your smut you are giving readers the chance to knowingly opt in or out of the experience you've written.

Most of the time, it's pretty easy to do basic tagging for sex acts—you know whether what you wrote shows Vaginal Sex, Anal Sex, or Non-penetrative Sex.  You probably know the names for different kinds of Oral Sex you may have included. You might not know what to call Frottage or Intercrural Sex, though, even if you understand the concept and included the act in your fic. Sometimes there are tags with rectangle-square type relationships (all Blow Jobs are Oral Sex, but not all Oral Sex is a Blow Job) and you're not sure if you should tag for both—you probably should. Sometimes there are tags for overlapping, closely related, or very similar acts or kinks and you're not sure which to tag—that one's more of judgement call; do your best to use the tags that most closely describe what you wrote.

Tag for the kinks at play, if any, so readers can find what they're into and avoid what they're not. Tag for what genitalia characters have if it's nonobvious, including if there's Non-Human Genitalia involved. Tag your A/B/O, your Pon Farr, and your Tentacles, including whether it's Consentacles or Tentacle Rape.

Technical specification tags give information about aspects of the fic other than its narrative content.  Most things on Ao3 are prose fiction so that's assumed to be the default, so anything else needs to be specified in tags. That includes Poetry, Podfics, things in Script Format, and Art. If it is a podfic, you should tag with the approximate length in minutes (or hours). If a fic is Illustrated (it has both words and visual art) tag for that.

Tag if your fic is a crossover or fusion.  The difference, if you're not sure, is that in a crossover, two (or more) entire worlds from different media meet, whereas in a fusion, some aspects of one world, like the cast of characters, are combined with aspects of another, like the setting or magic system.

If the team of paranormal investigators from one show get in contact with the cast of aliens from another show, that's a crossover and you need to have all the media you're drawing from up in the Fandom tags. If you've given the cast of Hamlet physical manifestations of their souls in the form of animal companions like the daemons from His Dark Materials but nothing else from His Dark Materials shows up, that's a fusion, the Fandom tag should be “Hamlet - Shakespeare,” and you need the “Alternate Universe - Daemons” tag. If you've given the members of a boy band elemental magic powers like in Avatar: the Last Airbender, that can be more of a judgement call depending how much from Avatar you've incorporated into your story. If absolutely no characters or specific settings from Avatar show up, it's probably a fusion.  Either way, if the boyband exists in real life, it needs to be tagged as RPF.

Tag if your fic is a Reader-Insert or Self-Insert.

You might want to tag for whether your fic is written with POV First, Second, or Third Person, and if it's Past Tense or Present Tense (or Future Tense, though that's extremely uncommon).  For POV First Person fics that are not self-inserts, or POV Third Person fics that are written in third person limited, you may want to tag which character's POV is being shown. Almost all POV Second Person fics are reader-insert, so if you've written one that isn't, you should tag for who the “you” is.

A fic is “POV Outsider” if the character through whom the story is being conveyed is outside the situation or not familiar with the characters and context a reader would generally know from canon. The waitress who doesn't know the guy who just sat down in her diner is a monster hunter, and the guy stuck in spaceport because some hotshot captain accidentally locked down the entire space station, are both potential narrators for POV Outsider stories.

Other technical specifications can be tags for things like OCtober and Kinktober or fic bingo games.  Tagging something as a Ficlet, One Shot, or Drabble is a technical specification (we're not going to argue right now over what counts as a drabble). Tagging for genre, like Horror or Fantasy, is too.

It's also good to tag accessibility considerations like “Sreenreader Friendly,” but make sure your fic definitely meets the needs of a given kind of accessibility before tagging it.

Personal

Even among personal tags there are established tags!  Things like “I'm Sorry,” “The Author Regrets Nothing,” “The Author Regrets Everything,” and “I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping” are common ones.  Tags about us and our relationship to the fic, such as “My First Work In This Fandom,” “Author is Not Religious,” and “Trans Porn By A Trans Author,” can help readers gauge what to expect from our fic. Of course, you are not at all obligated to disclose any personal information for any reason when posting your fic.

The “I'm Bad At Tagging” tag is common, but probably overused. Tagging is hard; very few of us have a natural feel for it even with lots of practice.  It's not a completely useless tag because it can indicate to readers that you've probably missed some things you should have tagged for, so they should be extra careful; but it can also turn into a crutch, an excuse to not try, and therefore a sign to readers they can't trust your tagging job. Just do your best, and leave off the self depreciation. If you're really concerned about the quality of your tagging, consider putting in an author's note asking readers to let you know if there are any tags you should add.

You might want to let readers know your fic is “Not Beta Read” or, if you're feeling a little cheekier than that, say “No Beta We Die Like Men” or its many fandom-specific variants like the “No Beta We Die Like Robins” frequently found among Batman fics and “No beta we die like Sunset Curve” among Julie and The Phantoms fic. Don't worry, the Archive recognizes all of these as meaning “Not Beta Read.”

The Archive can be inconsistent about whether it stacks specific variants of Additional Tags under the broadest version of the tag like it does with Fandom tags, so best practice is usually to use both.  You can double check by trying to search by a variant tag (or clicking on someone else's use of the variant); if the results page says the broader or more common form of the tag, those stack.

There's no such thing as the right number of tags. Some people prefer more tags and more detail, while other people prefer fewer more streamlined tags, and different fics have different things that need to be tagged for.  There is, however, such a thing as too many tags.  A tagblock that takes up the entire screen, or more, can be unreadable, at which point they are no longer useful. Focus on the main points and don't try to tag for absolutely everything.  Use the “Additional Warnings In Author's Note” strategy if your courtesy tags are what's getting out of hand.

Tag for as much as you feel is necessary for readers to find your fic and understand what they're getting into if they decide to open it up.

A little bit of redundancy in tags is not a sin.  In fact, slight redundancy is usually preferable to vagueness. Clear communication in tags is a cardinal virtue. Remember that tags serve a purpose, they're primarily a tool for sorting and filtering, and (unlike on some other sites like tumblr) they work, so it's best to keep them informative and try to limit rambling in the tags. Ramble at length in your author's notes instead!

Titles

Picking a title can be one of the most daunting and frustrating parts of posting a fic. Sometimes we just know what to call our fics and it's a beautiful moment. Other times we stare at that little input box for what feels like an eternity.

The good news is there's really no wrong way to select a title. Titles can be long or short, poetic or straight to the point. Song lyrics, idioms, quotes from literature or from the fic itself can be good ways to go.

Single words or phrases with meanings that are representative of the fic can be great. A lot of times these are well known terms or are easy enough to figure out like Midnight or Morning Glow, but if you find yourself using something that not a lot of people know what it means, like Chiaroscuro (an art style that uses heavy shadow and strong contrast between light and dark), Kintsukuroi (the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold), or Clusivity (the grammatical term for differences in who is or isn't included in a group pronoun), you should define the term in either a subtitle, i.e. “Chiaroscuro: A Study In Contrast,” or at the beginning of the summary.

As a courtesy to other writers, especially in small fandoms, you may want to check to make sure there's not already another fic with the same title in the same fandom, but this is not required. In large fandoms, there's no point in even trying. After all, there are only so many puns to be made about the full moon and only so many verses to Hallelujah.

It may be common practice on other platforms to include information such as fandom or ship in the title of a fic, but on Ao3 nothing that is specified by tags belongs in the title unless your title happens to be the same as a tag because, for instance, you've straightforwardly titled your character study of Dean Winchester “Dean Winchester Character Study” and also responsibly tagged it as such.

Summaries

Yes, you really do need to put something down for the summary. It might only need to be a single sentence, but give the readers something to go off of.

The summary is there to serve two purposes: one, to catch the interest of potential readers, give them a taste of what's inside, and make them want to know more; and two, to give you a space to provide information or make comments that don't really fit in the tags but that you want readers to see before they open the fic.

We've already talked some about that second function. When you put an explanation of the title or clarification about tags in the summary, that's the purpose it's serving. You can also put notes to “Heed the tags” or instruct readers that there are additional warnings in the author's note here in the summary, rather than doing so in the tags.

The first function, the actual summarizing, can be very hard for some of us.  It's basically the movie trailer for your fic, butwhat are you even supposed to say?

There are two main strategies as to how to approach this: the blurb, and the excerpt. Blurbs are like the synopses you at least used to see on the backs of published books, or the “Storyline” section on an IMDb page. Writing one is a matter of telling your readers who does what, under what circumstances.

Depending on the fic, one sentence can capture the whole thing: “Sam and Alex have sex on a train.” “Tori tries to rob a bank.” “If anybody had mentioned Max's new house was haunted, Jamie wouldn't have agreed to help with the move.”

Sometimes a blurb can be a question! “What happens when you lock a nuclear engineer in a closet with a sewing kit, a tennis ball, and half a bottle of Sprite?”

Of course, plenty of blurbs are more than one sentence. Their length can vary pretty significantly depending on the type and length of fic you're working with and how much detail you're trying to convey, but it shouldn't get to be more than a few short paragraphs. You're not retelling the entire fic here.

An excerpt is a portion of the fic copied out to serve as the summary. This, too, can vary in length from a line or two to several paragraphs, but shouldn't get too long. It should not be an entire scene unless that scene happens to be uncommonly short. It's important to select a portion of the fic that both indicates the who, what, and under what circumstances of the fic and is representative of the overall tone. Excerpts that are nothing but dialogue with no indication of who's talking are almost never a good choice. Portions that are sexually explicit or extremely violent are never ever a good choice—if it deserves content warnings, it belongs inside the fic, not on the results page.

Counterintuitively, some of the best excerpts won't even look like an excerpt to the reader if they don't contain dialogue. They seem like particularly literary blurbs until the reader reaches that part in the fic and realizes they recognize a section of narration.

Some of us have very strong preferences as to whether we write blurbs or use excerpts for our summaries. Some readers have very strong preferences as to which they find useful. Ultimately, there's no accounting for taste, but there are things we can do to limit the frustration for readers who prefer summaries of the opposite kind than we prefer to write, without increasing our own frustration or work load very much. Part of that is understanding what readers dislike about each type so we know what to mitigate.

Blurbs can seem dry, academic, and overly simplified. They don't automatically give the reader a sense of your writing style the way an excerpt does. They can also seem redundant, like they're just rehashing information already given in the tags, so the reader feels like they're being denied any more information without opening the fic.

Excerpts can seem lazy, like you, the author, don't care enough to bother writing a blurb, or pushy like you're telling the reader “just read the fic; I'm not going to give you the information you need to decide if you want to read or not, I'm shoving it in front of you and you just have to read it.” That effect gets worse if your tags aren't very informative or clear about what the plot is, if the excerpt is obviously just the first few lines or paragraphs of the fic, if the except is particularly long, or, worst of all, if all three are true at once.

A lot of the potential problems with blurbs can be minimized by having fun writing them! Make it punchy, give it some character, treat it like part of the story, not just a book report. A fic for a serialized show or podcast, for instance, could have a blurb written in the style of the show's “previously on” or the podcast's intro.  Make sure the blurb gives the reader something they can't just get from the tags—like the personality of your writing, important context or characterization, or a sense of the shape of the story—but don't try to skimp on the tags to do it!

Really, the only way to minimize the potential problems with excerpts is to be very mindful in selecting them. Make sure the portion you've chosen conveys the who, what, and under what circumstances and isn't too long.  You know the story; what seems clear and obvious from the excerpt to you might not be apparent to someone who doesn't already know what happens, so you might need to ask a friend to double check you.

The absolute best way to provide a summary that works for everybody is to combine both methods. It really isn't that hard to stick a brief excerpt before your blurb, or tack a couple lines of blurb after your excerpt, but it can make a world of difference for how useful and inviting your summary is to a particular reader. The convention for summaries that use both is excerpt first, then blurb.

If you're struggling to figure out a summary, or have been in the habit of not providing one, try not to stress over it. Anything is better than nothing.  As long as you've written something for a summary, you've given the reader a little more to help them make their decision. What really isn't helpful, though, is saying “I'm bad at summaries” in your summary. It's a lot like the “I'm Bad At Tagging” tag in that it's unnecessarily self depreciating, frequently comes across as an excuse not to try, and sometimes really is just an excuse. Unlike the “I'm Bad At Tagging” tag, which has the tiny saving grace of warning readers you've probably missed something, saying you're bad at summaries has no utility at all, and may drive away a reader who thought your summary was quite good, but is uncomfortable with the negative attitude reflected by that statement. Summaries are hard. It's okay if you don't like your summary, but it's important for it to be there, and it's important to be kind to yourself about it. You're trying, that's what matters.

Author's Notes

Author's notes are the one place where we, the writers, directly address and initiate contact with our readers. We may also talk to them in the comments section, but that's different because they initiate that interaction while we reply, and comments are mostly one-on-one while in author's notes we're addressing everyone who ever reads our fic.

The very first note on a fic should contain any information, such as warnings or explanations, that a reader needs to see before they get to the body of the story, as well as anything like thanks to your beta, birthday wishes to a character, or general hellos and announcements you want readers to see before they get to the body of the story. On multi-chapter fics, notes at the beginning of chapters serve the same function for that chapter as the initial note on the fic does for the whole story, so you can do things like warn for Self-Harm on the two chapters out of thirty where it comes up, let everyone know your update schedule will be changing, or wish your readers a merry Christmas, if they celebrate it, on the chapter you posted on December 23rd but is set in mid-March.

Notes at the end of a fic or chapter are for things that don't need to be said or are not useful to a reader until after they've read the preceding content, such as translations for that handful of dialogue that's in Vulcan or Portuguese, or any parting greetings or announcements you want to give, like a thanks for reading or a reminder school is starting back so you won't be able to write as much. End notes are the best place to plug your social media to readers if you're inclined to do so, but remember that cannot include payment platforms like Patreon or Ko-fi.

As previously mentioned, warnings can go in end notes but that really should only be done when the warnings are particularly long, such that the length might cause a problem for readers who are already confident in their comfort level and would just want to scroll past the warning description. In that case, the additional warnings need to go in the note at the end of the first chapter, rather than at the end of the fic, if it's a multi-chapter fic; and you need to include an initial note telling readers that warnings/explanations of tags are at the bottom so they know to follow where the Archive tells them to see the end of the chapter/work for “more notes.”

When posting a new work, where the Preface section gives you the option to add notes “at the beginning” or “at the end” or both, if you check both boxes, it means notes at the beginning and end of the entire fic, not the beginning and end of the first chapter. For single-chapter fics this difference doesn't really matter, but for multi-chapter fics it matters a lot. In order to add notes to the beginning or end of the first chapter of a multi-chapter fic you have to first go through the entire process to post the new fic, then go in to Edit, Edit Chapter, and add the notes there.

Series and Chapters

Dealing with Series and Chapters is actually two different issues, but they're closely related and cause some of us mixups, especially when we're new to the site and its systems, so we're going to cover them together.

Series on Ao3 are for collecting up different stories that you've written that are associated with each other in some way. Chapters are for dividing up one story into parts, usually for pacing and to give yourself and your readers a chance to take breaks and breathe, rather than trying to get through the entire thing in a single marathon sitting (not that we won't still do that voluntarily, but it's nice to have rest points built in if we need them).

If your story would be one book if it was officially published, then it should be posted as a single fic—with multiple chapters if it's long or has more than one distinct part, like separate vignettes that all go together. If you later write a sequel to that fic, post it as a new fic and put them together in a series. It's exactly like chapters in a book and books in a series. Another way to think of this structure is like a TV show: different fics in the series are like different seasons of the show, with individual chapters being like episodes.

If you have several fics that all take place in the same AU but really aren't the same story those should go together as a series.  If you wrote a story about a superhero team re-cast as school teachers, then wrote another story about different characters in the same school, that's this situation.

Series are also the best way to handle things like prompt games, bingos, or Kinktober, or collect up one shots and drabbles especially if your various fills, entries, and drabbles are for more than one fandom. If you put everything for a prompt game or bingo, or all your drabbles, together as one fic with a different chapter for each story, what ends up happening is that fic gets recognized by the Archive as a crossover when it isn't, so it gets excluded from the results pages for everyone who told the filters to Exclude Crossovers even though one of the stories you wrote is exactly what they're looking for; and that fic ends up with tons and tons of wildly varying and self-contradictory tags because it's actually carrying the tags for several entirely different, possibly unrelated stories, which also means it ends up getting excluded from results pages because, for instance, one out of your thirty-one Kinktober entries is about someone's NoTP.

Dividing these kinds of things up into multiple fic in a series makes it so much easier for readers to find what of your work they actually want to read.

If you've previously posted such things as a single fic, don't worry, it's a really common misunderstanding and there is absolutely nothing stopping you from reposting them separately. You may see traffic on them go up if you do!

Parting Thoughts

Metatext is ultimately all about communication, and in this context effective communication is a matter of responsibility and balance.

Ao3 is our archive. It's designed for us, the writers, to have the freedom to write and share whatever stories we want without having to worry that we'll wake up one day and find our writing has been deleted overnight without warning.  That has happened too many times to so many in our community as other fanfic sites have died, been shut down, or caved to threats of legal action. Ao3 is dedicated to defending our legal right to create and share our stories. Part of the deal is that, in exchange for that freedom and protection, we take up the responsibility to communicate to readers what we're writing and who it's appropriate for.

We are each other's readers, and readers who don't write are still part of our community. We have a responsibility as members of this community to be respectful of others in our shared spaces.  Ao3 is a shared space. The best way we have to show each other respect is to give one another the information needed to decide if a given fic is something we want to engage with or not, and then, in turn, to not engage with fic that isn't our cup of tea. As long as our fellow writer has been clear about what their fic is, they've done their part of the job. If we decided to look at the fic despite the information given and didn't like what we found, then that's on us.

Because metatext is how we put that vital information about our fics out in the community, it's important that our metatext is clear and easy to parse. The key to that is balance. Striking the balance between putting enough tags to give a complete picture and not putting too many tags that become an unreadable wall; the balance between the urge to be thorough and tag every character and the need to be restrained so those looking for fics actually about a certain character can find them; the balance between using established tags for clarity and ease and making up our own tags for specificity and fun.

Do your best, act in good faith, remember you're communicating with other people behind those usernames and kudos, and, most importantly, have fun with your writing!

#THE GUIDE #metatext #fandom meta #fandom etiquette #Eiiri made this

[day-at-rhodes-island]

So, you’re new to Arknights? The game does a pretty good job of covering the necessary information in the intro, but here’s some stuff I wish I had known when I started:

This is Doctor, most of the story will be told to you from their perspective and you can occasionally choose which of their (often very odd) thoughts they act upon. They are a master tactician capable of Sherlock-level bs and often act as the comic relief. Their helmet is wierd, their physiology is wierder, and no, no one knows what they are.

This is Amiya, she is your daughter (sort of), about 14 to 15 years old, the CEO of the Rhodes Island pharmaceutical company, gay for a catgirl (not important for now, but I think you should know), and her magical power is knowing what people are feeling and occasionally accessing their memories.

This is Kal’tsit, she is Amiya’s other parental figure (sort of), head of the medical department at RI, and she hates you (she has her reasons). Though she acts generally detached and clinical she actually has a heart of gold buried deep in there. No, she is not your ex, don’t be fooled by the memes, she just hates you.

Originium is a weird substance whose properties I will not be going into here. Just know that it is used as fuel and to make spell focuses, and if you get too much in your body it starts turning you into more originium (this is what it means to be Infected).

There is a lot to read, so if that’s not your thing you may just have to accept that you will have no idea what’s going on.

Now onto the actual gameplay,

You don’t need to spend any money to play all the way through the game, spending money will just allow you to progress faster and helps if you want to pull a specific operator. If you want to spend money the Monthly Card is really good value. Also, I would recommend using the Aceship Arknights Toolbox to get the most out of the recruitment system until you get used to how the tags work.

You do not need high rarity operators! The only inherent advantage to having higher star operators is they can be upgraded more and therefore have higher stats. Some 6-stars have completely unique kits, but it’s never necessary to have a specific 6-star to beat a level.

Arknights is hard, don’t feel bad if you struggle with a level or two. If you’re really stuck, just type the level code into the YouTube search and you’ll find a tutorial (hot tip: pretty much any operator can be swapped out with an operator of the same branch and similar level).

And that’s it!

Welcome to Terra.

#arknights #ramblings

[alien-ally]

place to be aggressively loveless and also post about the shows and characters i love without regrets

In short, apart from being an aspec safespace, as of late i’ve also started to post a lot about the shows/books (jbl mostly) i’m watching/reading as i don’t really want to set up another blog for it, new tag system is in place so consider checking that out!

Good day and do not take the intro too formally, as mentioned, i shall be posting about my very compelling interests infrequently. I've modified the intro too many times. Thought i should give a heads up regarding that in case you decide to follow me.

Welcome once again. This is going to be a wholly informal blog. Perhaps, a little unorganized too since I’ll mostly be posting on whim. (just that though. just the posting that’ll be spontaneous. the content will mostly be edited forms of stuff I write in my journal.) At first, I was thinking of watching tutorials to set this up (and I did a little) - but that’ll make it more complicated and I’m not going for that sort of an approach - so here we go. This is a casual, unprofessional blog containing the thoughts, musings and confessions(?) of an aroaceapl youngster. If it helps out even one other aspec like me, I’d consider my mission complete! As an informal blog, I'd be posting from my experiences and how I personally have it so none of my posts should be taken as a basis of definition or generalization for any of the mentioned identities. Will be posting irregularly.

If you're someone that makes it a point to search up the aspec tags and comment absolutely uncalled for aphobic shit on our posts, do not interact. As if you're going to listen to me, thank you.

P.s infrequently there'll be cryptic writings and out of topic posts, look out ᵔᴥᵔ

the blog has begun to slowly deviate and branch out into all things late night me but it'll always be primarily my aspec safe space so if you like the sound of that, consider staying<2

Are you greyapl too? Got any unique/weird takes on friendship? Share it with me or hit me up thru text, would love it.

(tagging #aa mine for my posts and some important reblogs)

new tagging system unlocked! just realized my knick-knack tag is in chaos cause i keep forgetting i use the hyphenated one, will get to fixin it one day

skate's strokes: resisdent aspec, 'actual motivation behind setting up blog' posting (+crafting posting)

thingamabob: showposting i.e bl

bobblehead: the more poignant, longer random posting

knick-knack: inconsequential random things that happen to me, i.e when it rains etc.

Much warmth. Stay safe everyone!

p.s also lmk if u think my pfp needs a renewal lmao. been wondering if it's become too bland. Text me randomly and I'll reply within a week if I'm not too stressed :))

#welcome #aroaceapl #aroace #asexual #aromantic #aplatonic #aroace teen #loveless aro #indian aroace #indian aro #indian apl #yes absolutely I'm an indian aspec #aa mine